Lighthouse
by llivla
Summary: Alt. post Doma and battle city approach. Old man Solomon suffered a massive heart attack at Doma…and everything changed. Most importantly where Yami stood in Yugi's life, affecting the events that follow. Dub-centric.
1. poured out like water

Disclaimer: That I do not own Yugioh is proof that my parents do not love me. BTW I am totally kidding.

Side Note: When I say Bakura, I do not mean eeevvvil Bakura, just regular old, fluffy, omgsocute Bakura. Yami Bakura will NOT be in this unless in passing…like Yuugi's missing something because the klepto was there. He's still recovering from dying in the shadow realm. Again. (Sarcasm, but seriously he dies almost as much as Joey.)

A/N: This takes place immediately post-Doma, with one itsy bitsy tiny detail I'm sure you'll figure out by the end of the first sentence.

--

_Buffy: Does it get any easier?  
Giles: You mean life?  
Buffy: Yeah. Does it get easy? [...]  
Giles: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.  
Buffy: Liar_  
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lie To Me, Season Two Episode Seven

--

Yugi was half-way through the month to eighteen until he was forced to completely realize that life was not a never-ending line. It wasn't one of those easy, linear equations punched into a graphing calculator. It was more of a parabola, a negative parabola, joyfully reaching a maximum height before plummeting where you'll never find it again.

It couldn't be changed with Monster Reborn, or magic, or winning the final turn, or restoring life points -- and it was a pitiful, mind-numbing epiphany. He'd always thought so little about his own existence that it was shocking for him to realize that anyone close to him could really be a gone for good. Souls could be won back, villains kept them contained like stolen, precious stones that weren't away from him forever.

Solomon didn't die on a battlefield, or fighting the latest force of Darkness. No instead, Solomon died in about ten minutes of a heart attack, in the end he was just as mortal and fragile as anyone else.

It was ironic that despite having a king in his head, death is an idea that comes slowly to Yugi; a long, desperate battle against an everyday event separate from him until now, against the evidence a randomly failing body in a normal old man. But Yugi had always been stubborn and he doesn't give in right away; he fought till the very last. He fought and fought still in the car with his mother behind the hearse, with the same passionate denial he used to deny he was in pain against Malik's attack on the blimp. Using that now was the only crumbling, stubborn resistance of reality's sniffling, distant family members he's never seen before slamming against his senses. The rites carried on Solomon's body passed in a blur before, now he couldn't escape them. He only stopped once in his thoughts to acknowledge that there was really nothing he could have done. And yet still, even if Solomon had to one day die like all humans, Yugi had always imagined it to be befitting of a man with Solomon Mutou's life: a death with honor, a death with adventure, a death with dignity. Something in grand gesture, a cocky grin on his old face.

Not like the truth.

_Not without a goodbye...not when he was all alone and no one even knew for days._

Yugi placed his hand onto the casket, touching the last piece of the man who raised him, for the last time. Confusion, loss, hurt... came sweeping upon him even heavier a torrent than against Pegasus, with his soul being torn to bits. Stepping back was harder than keeping himself upright in the shadow realm, accepting this was real was harder than seeing his Soul Room the first time. Harder than processing Professor Hawkins pulling him aside after they thought everything was over.

Because it was an _adventure_ then, and the good guy (the Spirit) always won. He watched in silence as his grandfather's mahogany casket was decorated with a large wreath of yellow flowers. His suit felt stiff and foreign, much like his mother's hand on his shoulder while she wiped her eyes with a tissue clenched in her free one. He couldn't run to the Pharaoh, because the Pharaoh couldn't save Grandpa from this. There was no "Monster Reborn" that could make it all better, no matter how strong his initial denial had been.

He should have saved his wish on the Puzzle. Should have waited for this. Should have known, should have tried using Isis' Item to check on Jii-chan's future if he hadn't been so _selfishly_ caught up in his own life. Should have thought of it on the plane to America, should have entertained the idea during the down time against Doma, should've…

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. _

So far Yugi had not broken, tried hard to be a man for his mother and not to cry as he'd done for his friends against Malik. He'd been in a stasis of shock, or maybe just hadn't been living this past week long enough for any of this to stick, no matter how many times his friends' faces and the world drifted in and out in front of him. Accept the reality. But Yugi was always more sensitive, and a few tears managed to escape his attention. Taking a shaky breath, he glanced down at his chest instead, unnaturally bare of gold and steel. The millennium pyramid would have drawn attention, he knew that now. It felt strange, this sudden lightness. Like a burden gone, the _reminder_ gone.

He wasn't a Chosen One right now. He was a little boy-man who very much wanted the casket to open and his grandfather to blink around scowling that he wasn't dead yet, money diggers! And did you give up on my old, ever-faithful ticker so easily Yugi—oh god, my back!

_He can't be dead. I saved his soul from Pegasus. I went to the end of my life in the Shadows for him, I died for him. I saved the world three times so we could be happy._

/against Malik with his body parts being snatched as life points; a sacrifice to an altar because…/

It takes Yugi a second to realize how strange that sounds. He's assaulted by memories again, seeing how strong and unbending Solomon used to be, and it all nearly makes him sick. It's sickening to imagine Solomon weak and frail under the heavy polished wood, it's downright perverted because it's just not right. Just like the store. Empty and closed and something he hasn't stepped foot in. Something someone else had cleaned up, someone else cleaned up the broken and fallen stock.

From when Solomon must have tried to grab something, anything, in panic for a reason no one really knows unless they've experienced that kind of situation.

It's too much for him and he finally thought, _Oh God, oh God I'm going to crack_. And he did, Yugi cracked with a small, repressed sound, awkward and tight and trying to be strong where he'd completely fallen apart when he'd nearly lost Joey, but stopping something that's already crumbling comes as it only can: horrible.

Therefore, the only thing Yugi can do at the moment is cry. Tight, frustrated, quiet crying of a boy-man who had nothing to lose but wasn't sure how to throw it away. Hollow, embarrassing half-sounds cut back by grit teeth and barely held together by threads of Japanese dignity.

He wanted to fast forward. He wanted to rewind. He wanted to freeze.

He'd lost the only thing that he gave a damn about protecting from the Darkness — unlike his friends who he couldn't keep away if he had a nine foot pole, his grandfather the one person Yugi thought he could separate from things like death and evil, keep him untouched in a _normal_ world of taxes, and games, and family, and scolding for looking at Téa's skirt while blushing himself. What had he done wrong? He'd followed the rules; he did what every hero in every video game, movie, or comic book did. He followed his own heart. He tried. He thought he'd tried hard _enough_. What had he, where had he…

Again, neither Tristan nor Téa talk, but the taller boy's hand tightened and gave Yugi's shoulder a squeeze: he did it feebly because his strength pretty much abandoned him trying to support Téa and his own grief. Sometimes, he opened his mouth to say something, but the effort was too much and he remained quiet. When Yugi looked at him, Tristan understood, and, distracting Tea, removed his hand from Yugi to hug her. They both watched her for a moment as she buried her head in Tristan's chest, until Tristan nodded to Yugi to go ahead.

The young man backed away from the crowd as the rector read the prayers to the departed soul, and spoke of unleashing a dove for symbolism. As he turned, he caught someone's eye, full of concerned questions wanting answers. Yugi looked away; he didn't want to answer anything.

Not today, his lowered eyes said. Someone else wear the super suit. Not now.

When he had the courage to raise his head again, Bakura gave a gentle smile, showing his understanding… and Yugi remembered Amane. He pasted a difficult smile of gratitude, knowing Bakura would make sure no one would look for him. With this in mind, Yugi crept away, needing to think.

--

As he watched his friend of sorts go, Bakura's frown returned. He watched the funeral go on without anyone else noticing the disappearance of the most important member, and he recalled the look of hopelessness on his friend's face. The expression of anger, frustration, and hurt that filled that face was so unlike his congenial, if distant, companion, Bakura had at first thought it was the Pharaoh. But no, these past two weeks since arriving back from America, Yugi no longer wore the Item, "parading it" Yugi muttered, unless sure no one was around. It seemed after the whole Doma episode, the trusting, optimistic person that Yugi used to be was something a bit more… normal. Cynical as the rest of them.

He looked around, but saw no tell-tale blond hair connected to a tell-tale slouch. Apparently Joey was still hiding from Yugi, and Bakura didn't know whether to be angered or sympathetic. It wasn't his fault, it was no one's fault, but this would certainly put a strain on their passionate friendship…

'Why did Yugi have to get the bad deck anyway?' Bakura's dark coffee eyes flashed angrily as the mourners started to give more flowers before heading to their cars. 'I could have taken it! I could move on!' However, life was unfair, and it didn't give a damn on whether someone could take it or not.

"Should we go after him?" Tristan muttered low. Téa sucked in sharply, clearly giving her opinion on the matter, but Tristan was still holding her wrist to prevent her from bolting. "Swarming him like we did when we first found out Solomon died didn't work. He just clammed up and zoned out in his head. You know Yugi is, Téa, he doesn't like—"

"That's not an excuse for him to isolate himself!"

While they bickered, Bakura touched the place on his chest absently where the Ring was, beneath layers of dark fabric and cotton. The Voice hadn't been bothering him since the last duel ages ago; most likely still recovering from his recent vacation to the Shadowland.

'I wonder what he'll do now.' Bakura wondered, as Yugi's mother began to turn around and tapping people shoulders. When she raised an arm level to her shoulder and he caught "this tall" he figured it out and moved forward. 'He'll have to support himself or… go. I know enough from Tristan that his mother isn't sticking around…' How sick was it that they all had the most pathetic excuses for parents? And then there was the whole Dark-Yugi business…

Bakura was convinced that if there was a God, He, She, It, whatever, was a writer, and everyone was simply characters. This actually comforted him when he was writing nonsense for himself, or writing to his sister, and sometimes made him feel not as lonely. Unless it was one of those days against the voice in his head, or just one of those days. Then Bakura was convinced that if this were true he was probably just the useless secondary character that existed just so that the protagonist would have someone to ask the time.

He could still hope, though. He always had that.

He approached her with the winning smile all older females cooed him over. Yugi was lucky and cursed by the Puzzle, that he was never alone…but soon would be. Bakura always was, and that hurt, because he had to cross himself off on the list of people who could help the savior of the world. The savior of the world who's heart just might have been stretched too thin this time. 'I wonder what Yugi will do and if he at least still has the common sense intact not to try to do it alone, because from first hand experience I know that hurts so much more.'

He closed his eyes. His thoughts began to drift to his own heart ache, his own cage. The funeral that, unlike Yugi, he could never seem to walk away from.

_There's always that foolish hope, that little schoolboy hope at the edge of my mind, that you're comforted somewhere thinking of how much I still love you, Amane._

Yes, he knew first hand love could be the most beautiful or the most destructive thing in existence.

--

It was finally just too cold.

Yugi had sat down against a random tree in the back of the park a few hours ago, needing some place quiet that wasn't of the literal, 'in-your-head' variety. Everything was too up in his face—he needed to regroup and think.

'To get your mind off of everything.' His groggy brain reminded him. All anything did these days made him depressed. He sat up a bit from the tree bark against his back, rubbed an eye absently. He played with a stray blade of grass while his mind caught up with him.

What time was it? Was it a school day? Should he go to school or should he just stay home and would anyone even notice…he should care about that sort of thing.

What time had he left? Yugi gave up rebelling his compulsive need and pulled back his sleeve only to remember he'd dropped his watch sprinting away from the self-destructing island after the battle with Noah. The band had been too abused against shielding his face from the fire and suspiciously, physically impaling "holograms"…

Time… what time… He looked up. His brain jumped from something as inane as time to other matters.

Time. Future. His future.

He was almost eighteen, but the law wouldn't allow him to live by himself if he kept this up. Yugi started to laugh at that. He regularly ditched school to fight for the sake of the world on a regular basis, fighting people too selfish to realize their souls were being eaten by darkness to unleash monsters… and he was scared of humans with paper work? That was the Chosen One?

He clutched his fists. Even now, he longed for the security o the Puzzle. Not only for the Pharaoh, his friend, but it was all he had of his "Jii-chan", besides memories. Grandpa's most important treasure…

_I miss you._

He was the patient one, the optimistic one. He did the saving the world thing, he did all that he was supposed to like a…like a puppet because that was the hidden, size point two fine print under 'if you solve the Millennium Puzzle.' You saved the world with a lost soul next to yours and you did it with a smile, right?

People were always telling him it didn't matter what he did. People like Kaiba snorted down on him that if you saved something it would only die later.

And while Yugi was strong enough to be the Pharaoh's partner, he was also a human being, and it was getting harder and harder to fight people like Kaiba when more and more proof kept falling in their favor: He fought for Joey at the pier and still a bit of Joey's innocence didn't come back. He fought for Grandpa and he died.

He fought for the Pharaoh and… he was going to leave, going to die, Yugi knew it. It was his job, a duty he took to heart and meant it, but like the fairy tales Téa always begged for Grandpa to tell when they were young and sleeping in the den, it was like walking on knives with every step. Yugi wanted to…wanted to sit there and disappear into the whispers of the wind and never be found again.

It wasn't that he didn't want this responsibility anymore, he just didn't think he was strong enough to say goodbye. Goodbye was horrible. He wanted to be angry, but how could he? It wasn't like Grandpa or the Pharaoh were happy to say it. Unwillingly, his mind recalled the funeral in blurred movie-like images: the service, the processional music, the burial.

The casket. The casket and Catholic funeral Solomon would have been furious with but his mother stubbornly decided. Why did everything seem to just go from bad to even worse with him? It seemed as soon as life gave him a break, everything plummeted, crashing downhill even further and rougher than before. It wasn't right for all this to keep piling up and up, never stopping, he wasn't a physics whiz but he saw the teacher demonstrating balloons, water bottles, equations, he knew what happened eventually.

_Anyone up there,_ he thought in weariness. _In what way is this fair? Why am I up here like this, being tormented by something I can't even see?_

Yugi knew he was cracking again… he closed his eyes and thought of his friends to steady his breath, just like before. His heart hurt painfully.

_Grandpa_… The one who took care of him, looked after him: gave him money when bullies demanded it because Yugi never ran away and had to face the consequences, giving him games to let him hide and forget his loneliness, telling him stories about adventure to give him hope after middle school and freshmen higher school and… He struggled to get up; using the tree he'd been leaning against for support. His legs had fallen asleep. He fell after a couple of steps. He had to stand up. Had to support himself. Grandpa would want to know he could support himself.

His mother would probably take off again… maybe with his father. Maybe. He didn't think his father would be coming home from business now, ever. After all, there wouldn't be anymore worry about Grandpa needing a nursing home. And Yugi was almost eighteen—clearly at the age of a man, he should be able to take care of himself, he should be able to handle it, their son was so mature, so responsible and accepting, he should be able to—to just—

He inhaled sharply, clutching his fists in his jacket. _Don't blame anyone. It's no one's fault._

Well, even if he didn't know where he was philosophically, at least he knew where he was physically; that was a start. He wasn't too far from home, he passed here all the time going back and forth to Téa's house.

He glanced up at the night sky. The clear heavens, so dark in their midnight tone and the stars millions of miles away glittering like Téa's smile, made everything all the more beautiful.

Suddenly, Yugi groaned inwardly and clutched his head. All this stress, crying--he felt like a freight-train ran him over, twice even.

Someone else might look at Yugi's path, his journey back that night (morning) to the place he had grown up and always was returning to. Maybe wonder why bother continuing to do that; going obediently back to a life where all that it welcomed and called was darkness? Weevil, Rex, Malik's horde, Kaiba, Pegasus, Doma (_don't think about it_) why, why did go back only to be hit again?

There was a part of Yugi that did want to turn away, to run like hell to a time when the labels of right and wrong were simple, just sloppily highlighted words in his crams review book. He was human.

But it was always, always overridden by the fierce pull of his heart.

Though it hurts, and he feels like doubling over and going '_it's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie_' just like before finding Joey's soulless body, Yugi knows life is not always like this. It hadn't always been this empty, this hopeless, and it wouldn't always be._ There are good memories too, and that was what made the difference. _And without those he'd lose the identity, albeit the one that only existed with the Pharaoh there to hold it up, had caused it to begin with.

Even if he really didn't stand on his own at all.

_Don't talk like that, it's no one's fault. There are good memories and there will continue to be._

He looked up high into the quiet sky scape.

But he didn't know what the hell he was doing, still, and it was so painfully, embarrassingly obvious that he was ashamed of it.

He walked across the empty car lot; moonlight reflecting off the black tar. Shoving trembling, cold hands into suit pockets he'd throw away to deny lingering memories of that horrid oak casket, Yugi continued the trek home.

* * *

Quotes:

_...if there was a God, he/she/it/Fluffy/whatthebuggerever, was a writer, and everyone were just his/her/its characters. This actually comforted him when he was writing himself, or writing to his sister, and sometimes made him feel not as lonely. Unless it was one of those days against the voice in his head, or just one of those days, then Bakura was convinced that if this were true he was probably just the useless secondary character that existed just so that the protagonist would have someone to ask the time. _

Yes I got this off Fandom Secrets. Shut up; and whoever you are OP, you are my favorite person because it was a very 'Bakura' thought to have and I needed inspiration and I saw your secret and it hit me with Bakura-ness and humped and humped and wouldn't let go and I LOVE YOU OKAY?!

_God, he thought in weariness. In what way is this fair? Why am I up here alone like this, being tormented by something I can't even see?_

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick


	2. the men who would be kings

Disclaimer: If I owned Yugioh, Jounouchi and Mai would have made out all the time, and Bakura would NOT HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN in that one flashback Yuugi had on the roof of all his friends. D; Animators did you just forget to draw him or something?!

A/N: Not sure if I'm going for a mentor/mentor angle here, friendship, brothers, or shounen-ai. Hell, this whole series has subtext for everything imaginable out there

--

_If you're walking to escape  
to escape from your affliction  
you'd be walking in a circle_  
-- Sting, Dead Man's Rope

--

(Yugi: modern: just keep playing)

It's not true, at least for him, that you completely forget the last few days when you wake up. He wasn't disoriented. He knew the last few days.

Groaning slightly, Yugi clutched his head. He tried to fight the memories of a short, cold conversation with his mother when he came home, and his temper tantrum after she left. No such luck; the past year he had the marvelous development to be incapable of forgetting even most minute details of things.

And there was also the fact of him having a life that just happened to be filled with events that were quite hard for any normal person to easily forget had an impact on his brain's reflexes.

_Should just switch with the Pharaoh and make things better for both of us._

The Spirit couldn't remember, but Yugi couldn't forget. The Pharaoh wanted to mind crush just about everything, Yugi didn't because _that is not mature problem-solving_. The Pharaoh couldn't remember his own stupid name, Yugi just wanted to be left the hell alone from Kaiba challenging 'him' all the time. By all rights the Pharaoh's life sounded like it had been more jam-packed than Yugi's own (previously thought impossible) and in sarcastic fits he couldn't understand how a man could forget his own name even with the whole 'it was for the good of the world' thing.

_Maybe it's BS and he is going to knife me in my sleep._ Yami turning out to randomly being destined to act as the Anti-Christ and plotting to take over the world with Bozo the Clown wouldn't be out of the ordinary. He would probably even make it sound perfectly reasonable and get Yugi to go along with it. He laughed a little at the image, and ran a hand through his hair.

His head was just so swollen, stuffy. Probably from crying and not washing his face.

Leaning back down again, Yugi let the sun's rays from afternoon envelope him. Unconsciously, he clutched the blanket closer to him. Hmm, soft and warm and—

_Blanket?_

He hadn't gotten it. He'd been so busy fuming at his mother leaving he'd gone from passive-aggressively stewing until he was venting until passing out. Opening his eyes, he glanced down at the warm fabric. He knew this blanket; he knew every stitch, every corner and thread. It was his, in the most personal and unique sense he bestowed to anything else besides the Puzzle, his deck, and a few pictures of his friends.

His mother had made it for him for his fourth birthday, right around when she'd started going back to work again; Linda hadn't planned her time frame well enough with the workload of returning to an updated health insurance company… so it was a few days late, but had Yugi clutched it tighter than Grandpa's photo albums of his parents in the game shop closet all the same. Although he didn't remember the day at all, their old house, or many of his brief encounters with his flighty parents, Yugi still felt the emotions attached to them.

He absentmindedly traced the baby blue stitch with his fore finger, reliving the patterns.

His mom spent her time off from sewing the detailed four animals on the soft fabric: a baby lamb, a cat, and a bird. The soft fabric had a calming effect; tracing the painstakingly sewn names in Japanese in English brought a weird sense of peace.

His father was trying to rise far in the car manufacturing company, and really, the only times he came home to Domino -- or even Japan -- was a few days of Yugi helping him remember his son couldn't play, let alone 'get,' baseball worth a damn, and while he was good at, and even enjoyed, solving equations and word problems in his classes, ln and e^ were never going to make sense to him, and he wasn't ecstatic about imagining following in his father's career footsteps.

He sometimes wondered if he was such a disappointment when they came to the conclusion that their intimacy would not mold the son they wanted, and convinced them to withdraw into the lives they originally wanted before Linda found out she was pregnant.

If so, Yugi didn't really mind. On one hand, he had the love and support of his friends filling what used to be loneliness; it also made things so much easier to go running off to America at three a.m. to save the world or Duel on blimps and glass rooftops without worrying about them watching on national television. Hospital sign-outs by Kaiba or Tristan, and Duke throwing money at the dog-like media to get them to shut up about certain things, was definitely more stable and involved less yelling than if his parents woke up and realized just what the Oxford definition of their roles implied. Grandpa kept all records of their timely and fortunate escapades around the world in a trunk in the attic. Maybe he would look in there today and find dear old dad's office schedule, call him up and say something like 'hey what's up…why weren't you at your father-in-law's funeral since I died to get him back? Oh yeah, I died too by the way, again, and did you just ignore the answering messages from the school on purpose or really not care enough to check up on that?'

Sometimes he distantly wondered what would have changed if they had been involved. Then snorted. Okay, Dad would've had him committed when the carnival bully blew himself up and the police found Yugi's fingerprints everywhere, his mother would have smashed the Puzzle and scattered the pieces in the ocean when Pegasus mentioned how much he wanted it (and even then…Yugi would have drowned with it than be without the Pharaoh), and… they _both_ would have definitely committed him when after being on television dueling with his best friend on a pier with explosives around theirs and Téa's necks. Yugi and Grandpa worked hard and fast to make sure they never knew about the fire, ever.

It was just better this way, because he didn't want them really, to know how much their son had changed. When younger, when he was target for anyone over five foot three and one hundred and eighteen pounds, he only cared about surviving 'here and now' and keeping his invisibility secured; to accomplish that from even his parents required a smile and no one was the wiser. But Battle City was over, and the suspicious lack of people trying to kill him was forcing everything he thought he flushed down the emotional toilet to chug right back up at him. Being invisible hadn't worked. And being visible _sucked_.

He tucked a lock of stray hair behind his ear-only to have it bounce back into place once more. He was ready to scream in frustration at his untamed tri-colored mane when he suddenly noticed the a couple band aids on his arm.

If he thought reality came to him fast when he woke up, it basically slapped him now. Staring with wide eyes, he tried to comprehend what he had done. He had punched the tree, cut up his fists then clawing through the bark. And flashbacks of last night returned like a wave. His mother leaving, telling him the dishes in the dishwasher were almost done and to put them away like she was just going to the store, rather than a suitcase in her hand. The anger, the loneliness of abandonment…foreign things he wasn't used to indulging in because he feared them. He gingerly flexed his knuckles, wincing a little. Finding the note his mother left about leaving that night, seeing her all awkward at him being home before she could leave, hadn't helped much. Anxiety filled his stomach.

He wasn't stupid; he knew he'd been too tired from crying to have been in control to do much of anything after five in the morning.

He glanced down and found the gold pyramid resting once more against his stomach. As risky as it was, he could never stand to be away from his mentor for long, let alone put up a fight when the Pharaoh was hell bent on supporting him. Especially in times of emotional need. At the same time he also never really liked thinking about Yami himself; it was too weird because on one hand he wanted to throttle him for making his life so complicated and on the other hug him for making it so wonderful, hug him for _being_ so wonderful and making him feel so safe, and then throttle him for it too because Yugi could never be him while the Spirit was there. And then hug him again because as long as they were together, it didn't matter, that was okay.

If he could touch him, anyway.

Clutching the blanket in his fists, Yugi struggled not to get angry. It was pointless to be angry really. After all, what was he mad at in the first place? It would never be his grandfather, or even Joey.

He wasn't used to being the one moping. That was the Spirit of the Puzzle's job and everyone else's. And he didn't want to get so wrapped up in his dramatic "secret problems" for so long he started to project unfairly onto his undeserving friends. But after all he had been through, all the pain, the suffering and the loss; after doing all of that, which nobody, not even the old Pharaoh could do… he was still a naïve, vertically challenged boy in the eyes of those who didn't know how much he'd done for them and their world, like his parents. His accomplishments didn't make them come home, and it didn't make the bad things stop coming.

Before this his height, his appearance, his confidence -- all hadn't mattered when he was younger; he didn't have friends then, so it hadn't been of importance.

But now he had to face that he couldn't frighten Death away. In a sense, he taunted it too often calling on monsters and wearing a ghost itself around his neck.

The vividness of all involved in flickered to life, his memories sensitive and disturbing with this new twist. And because of it, he felt detached from his friends. Now when he looked in the mirror, he wondered if he looked more like them if he could have made a more formidable impression on whoever it was keeping tally of who lived and died.

All his life he wanted friends and now that he had them he…didn't…what? It wasn't that he didn't want them, he just felt so different. It was too much; he also knew so much more than they did it couldn't be kept back much longer. They did everything together, but it was like the hallway he was walking down was narrowing, and there wasn't room for them anymore. As if he had something they couldn't learn, and that would forever make him diverse from them. Have to go first, at least, and protect them.

Anything else let everyone suffer. Téa's body was used as a puppet for a manifestation of hatred, she stood on a pier with bombs, but she was out for the lot of it, and had been thankfully saved before she could really compute what was happening to her. So far, even running from homicidal penguins and an exploding island, Yugi never had to see complete and total death grip her with fear. He saved everyone from Malik on the pier, on the blimp; her eyes stayed cheerful. She had feelings for the Spirit, and much as Yugi tried to push them together, the Spirit still resisted, and Yugi had to wonder if it was _because_ of that last piece of understanding missing held Yami from ever loving her back. But she was always there, and even if it wasn't really for him but for the king sharing his body, Yugi would never mind it. Having that undying faith, having her there was enough. Selfishly having her there when Yugi felt it was all slipping away -- if Téa stopped believing in him, if he failed and let darkness actually touch her and dim that light in her eyes, Yugi was uncertain how long he could hold out supporting the Pharaoh and himself. He'd fail her in way maybe even worse than Joey. _Joey_. Who wasn't talking to him right now.

Joey who was avoiding him. Maybe everyone. Joey, tough exterior the best and only defense against his unstable, violent life. It would never fool Yugi; he knew Joey too well, or at least believed he did, because sometimes he felt so deeply that he'd always known him. And because he assumed so much, because he spent so much energy looking up to Joey, he got too busy trying to be closer to him to not pay attention…_don't think about it_. Yugi swallowed.

And even though Tristan and Yugi had never been all that close; he saw a determination, a strength that Tristan had built up when no one was looking. An relaxed adulthood Yugi was so jealous of and which continued escaping him. Perhaps that was why Yugi needed him, because Tristan could just blink at everything and process it in a more sensible way than Kaiba or any of them — Tristan was, somehow, normal, he didn't lapse into denial or go crazy, and that mental strength was the reason he was the only one Yugi knew to so far be unable to be controlled. But the strength Yugi envied in Tristan also kept Tristan from understanding Yugi from the very beginning, and why Yugi couldn't turn to him either.

Bakura was so soft-spoken — maybe even more so than Yugi had been — and really was the most intellectual and slightly unhinged person Yugi had ever come across. It was so strange; he'd have thought their at least surface-y mutual situations would bring them together, but instead it kept them on opposite sides of a gaping canyon for a looming war creeping closer every day. He brought his knees to his chest, closing his eyes tightly. He reflected wonderingly upon the tomb robber the Pharaoh seethed with unresolved anger at. Seeing the once pharaoh's feathers ruffled at the mention of someone who refused to die wasn't a sight one saw every day. And he thought, _Really, Dark Bakura couldn't pick a better time to try and kill us again, that would be just our luck._

No matter if they were there on the march to every duel, in the end, support system or no support system, he and the Pharaoh fought alone.

He hadn't sensed the Puzzle activate. Yugi couldn't feel the weight of the couch shift because there was nothing there to. But he realized he wasn't alone, because there was familiar tug of joy and pain he always felt having the Pharaoh closer to the surface.

Unwillingly, he looked into the concerned eyes. Yugi frowned in sad, almost distracted care seeing a tightness there and in the spirit's jaw, a focus that could be considered creepy if you didn't know Yami very well...actually most people would be more inclined to take off running if they knew him well, but Yugi wasn't most people and instead found the bug-under-a-microscope stare only slightly disconcerting. In a comforting way.

"Yugi." Then, maybe it was because he suddenly wasn't looking at Yugi anymore, but at the ground that made him seem less than a king and Yugi more in control. Which was odd, or rather, Yugi finding that odd _now_, because Yami had to depend on him for everything if you thought about it…almost as odd as seeing the normally fearless judge practically fidgeting nervously talking to him, a kid.

That was him, yeah, Yugi was real scary. All two feet of him, or whatever. "Yeah?" He tried to pull a smile, something to let one of the most important people in his life know it was all right.

The Spirit seemed to think to himself for a few moments before speaking again, but his voice was no more certain. "Please tell me what's wrong so I can help."

Yugi sat back against the couch's edge, falling deeper into the soft pillows. After his scant hours of sleep, the previous hurt and grief that boiled in the wake of his mother's departure dulled to a low ache. "I could say nothing you have to worry about," He said, weighing his words. "But that... You fought to save him too, before…"

The Pharaoh put his face in his hands. "That wasn't my point." He paused, looking up to some point on the other side of the living room. "Yugi, last night with you mother. I..."

Yugi opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it. He tried again, but like before no sound came out. He bet he resembled a fish, and figured it would all have been very humorous if the situation hadn't been so depressing. He could have just used the link to send out what he was feeling… but he really didn't feel like doing it because he didn't want to be connected to anything at the moment

Yugi knew what he was asking; Yami could be many negative things but he wasn't an idiot.

"I don't…know. I don't know what to do, I'm… I don't feel like I'm really here." Yugi swallowed back the ache rising up in his chest. He looked up, blinking hard to shove back the tears.

Vulnerable. Lost. Disconnected. The day before yesterday he'd gone into his grandfather's room and just sat against the side of the bed, listening to his mother moving around downstairs. It was a position he'd been in many times before. When he was young, when it was night, when he was little and crept in after a nightmare, but guiltily didn't want to wake Grandpa up. Somehow Grandpa would know anyway, would wake up. He'd hug him, joke how Yugi better not ask for hot chocolate or anything because he was too lazy, and let Yugi sleep with the light on.

It wasn't until his mother walked by, startled that he was in the same position she'd seen him in four hours earlier, that Yugi realized he'd been waiting. Maybe, for the comforter to shift against his back, and a warm, wrinkled hand to shake him awake. Maybe something else.

The Pharaoh hadn't interrupted him once.

And now, for about five minutes, though it seemed like long hours, they sat like that in an uncomfortable silence, completely out of sync: Yugi staring at the ceiling and Yami staring at the floor through his hands.

"You're hurting," the Pharaoh's voice was strained. Yugi thought about how the other cared deeply for Grandpa as well. "You loved him."

Yugi brought his knees up to his chest like he always did. He resisted the sudden urge to rock, to distract himself from crying again. "I know."

--

(Téa: meanwhile: i bet i say that to all the girls)

"You know Seto Kaiba right?"

_Oh for the love of Duel Monsters..._

Dammit, now Grandpa Mutou had _her_ saying it in his place!

"Know isn't...really the word," Téa said awkwardly. She didn't want to be here -- as soon as the final bell rang Téa was ready to high tail out the building in Olympic timing for Yugi's. Inside she was twitching; and Inner Téa, who was a lot more physical and blunt with her declarations, wanted to use language to do Joey and Tristan proud.

...She was spending too much time with those guys.

She used to be class president, a representative model to the school for three years since senior year of middle school, but Mora had taken over when Téa had 'been sick' for half a month back in August (more like 'I-decided-to-go-to-a-crazy-man's-island-because-I-worried-my-friend-would-lose-his-soul-in-a-tournament' sick, but she couldn't very well say that to the teacher overseeing the school council).

That she was able to still be in anyone's good list with her recent track record staining her previously glowing reputation, with girls, was because of her laid back nature while also not afraid to tell someone to shut up and get back to work, and whether her popularity with the male side of the school was because of her looks, brain, or that she turned down all dates and therefore deemed 'hard to get' was unclear ('I-have-to-watch-my-friends-in-the-City-tournament-so-they-don't-get-killed' wasn't the excuse she used for winter formal. Téa had half a mind to say she was a lesbian with Serenity but didn't think Joey would appreciate that, so said instead her parents were old fogies and didn't allow it).

"Really?" Her inquirer mused. Tsuska, the girl who took over Téa's previous position a few months ago when Téa said she was too stressed to juggle the task ('I-got-stuck-in-a-warehouse-while-my-friends-battled-their-lives-out-in-an-RPG-and-had-no-time-to-order-the-glitter-streamers' stress, but she couldn't very well say that when blaming her life problems on AP Physics work load sounded easier). She was nice enough to lead the planning committee, and Téa felt no ill will towards her because she still asked her for opinions and connections. "But," and here Tsuska's green eyes lowered while she tucked a stray bang behind her ear, "Your guy friends are seen a lot with him."

"Do you not like him or something?" The president asked flat out.

"Uh..." Téa said out loud. Unconsciously, her pen she'd been lazily creating spirals with slid from her fingers as she lowered it to her desk, becoming apprehensive.

'Under the tip of the ice berg of insulting Joey all the time, putting road blocks in front of us wherever he can, insulting the Pharaoh who has done nothing but try to help him, and rejecting what's obvious truth to his stuck up nose, Kaiba used to try to...oh I don't know... kill Yugi. And has a nasty habit of manipulating Yugi's trust masking his disregard for any life but his and Mokuba's. Several times.'.

"Different strokes for different folks. And Kaiba's never expressed kind interest towards the school, Tsuska; I don't think he'll start now. He's...preoccupied, understandably. I doubt he even knows about our events coming up."

The group considered this answer, seemed to give a collective nod, and go on about other sponsors for the dance.

Despite inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, Téa wished, more than anything, for Yugi to just come back to school. Without him, she felt like she was in an alternate universe planning this dance. On the selfish side his presence gave her another focus; gave her an excuse not to be in the real world and stay in his. On the other he and his mother were so busy wrapping up Solomon's history and credit and other filings to the government he couldn't return her calls, and she worried he might think he didn't have her support or her to look out for him. It wasn't that she didn't trust the Pharaoh, quite the opposite, but Téa liked to do things for herself and see things for herself, and taking care of her friends was at the top of the list.

She really...just didn't trust anyone with Yugi. Not when she messed up so horribly, once upon a time, herself.

"--blue, Téa?"

"What?"

They were all looking at her expectantly, and Téa felt the ears hidden under her hair burn in embarrassment. "I--sorry, I...I..."

"You...?" Frowning, Mora surveyed her with a condescending eyebrow. "Téa, were you listening at all to how we should present the awards?"

"No--I-I mean, yes, I mean,..." Crap. Crap crap crap. "I was just thinking of someone else we could ask to sponsor!"

'I was?'

"Really?" Treasurer Lucy's own short-tempered look slid into an excited smile. She leaned towards Téa, closer than Téa thought necessary being as the girl was right beside her, money signs practically radiating from her eyes. "Who?"

_Who?_ Téa's mind repeated like an owl. _Yeah--Who?!_

Anything! Pick anyone but Kai--

"Duke," her mouth churned out. "Duke Devlin. I've seen him. Recently. At...uh. Anyway, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to help."

Barely restraining herself from covering her mouth in denial, Téa barely noticed the chatter breaking out among the officers and council members; mostly the girls, with their sighing and giggling, but the guys were high-fiving they might not have to break their backs with car washes (or the girls breaking their spines for oggling their bikinis instead of soaping Mazdas).

Yugi had to get back soon before Téa's mouth got her into more trouble. And maybe he could let her know if he still had Duke's cell phone number, if the dragon that had chased them across the desert hadn't eaten that, or hadn't perished when the truck flipped him up in the air.

Groaning, without anyone paying attention to her in their celebratory excitement, Tea folded her arms and banged her forehead on her desk.

--

(Tristan: at some point: i can see right through you)

"You've reached the Wheeler's. Leave your name n' message at the beep."

_Beep!_

"Hey dude. It's Tristan. Again."

_Sighh_.

"Look. I know you're messed up right now, and we talked a long time ago about not leaving private messages at your house, but you haven't been to school, you don't e-mail me back, Duke says you were on AIM for two seconds and then logged off before he could do anything, and no one answers the stupid door. I've had it, man. Get your balls back on if they still even exist, and haul your poor ass to the gate first thing tomorrow after school. After Bakura's done with school chores, we're going to Yugi's. If you're not there I'll find you and drag you behind my motorcycle."

_Rustling. Silence.  
_

"...Joey... please. Show up. I don't like fighting you, but if I have to comb every Domino alley for you... I will."

_Click_.

--

(The Dead Guy Without a Name: modern: stepped on a snake, fuck, i wish i saw it first)

"You know. All of us, your friends, we're here. I'm still here."

Yugi looked at him. There was a calm, sad smile gathered in his eyes, delicate with the rest of his face. "Not for long, Pharaoh."

He stiffened, his heart seizing in anger and guilt. He hadn't expected Yugi to bring up that elephant. Not now.

He knew Yugi loved his grandfather, probably the one closest to his heart — that was why the poor man was used against him so many times. He felt conflicted over Yugi refusing to open up: on one hand he felt like he was just locked away, locked out, and it was unfamiliar. On the other… he couldn't quite decipher the emotion because it encompassed too much and quite frankly it frightened him with its inappropriate intensity and would undoubtedly earn a reaction from Yugi that would end up with him being discarded behind said locked door.

And on yet _another_ he didn't care about his emotional baggage — Yugi was suffering. Yugi. And he wouldn't let Yami help him.

He hadn't even been aware he'd been tapping against Yugi's mental walls until the equivalent of Yugi slapping his hand away assaulted his mental senses. Flinching back, he was further hurt by Yugi turning his head away, young eyes clenched shut tightly. "Sorry Pharaoh," he said curtly after a minute. "But I don't want to share right now."

"Yugi," He ventured. He racked his brain to manipulate the conversation that would steer towards Yugi being more comfortable before they solved this together. "Don't you think that isn't getting us anywhere?"

"I dunno, I don't really want to go anywhere right now."

"Not funny. I need you to open up and tell me—"

But he apparently struck a nerve during Yugi's closed thought process; and the unfortunate Spirit had no chance to defend himself against the eruption of misplaced of emotions that poured out of his partner's link and mouth.

"WHAT DO YOU CARE!" The boy exploded suddenly, jumping up from the couch and glaring at Yami. Yami was taken back, he slowly stood up.

"Yugi," He tried to talk reason into him, get him to sort out these feelings.

"No, don't you talk to me like that, not in that tone, don't you even dare!" Yugi's mouth ran on, his tirade growing like a broken dam. "You're not in charge of me, you're dead so _you have no idea _anymore anyway _so leave me the hell --_" His hands clapped over his mouth, eyes wide. Yami reached out to him, trying to soothe away Yugi's shame and guilt and _ohgod whatdidIdo,__ thatwasn'titatall oh God I'mhorrible _suddenly slamming against him through the link. But that startled Yugi even more, he backed away, back towards the doorway to the stairs, and pain flashed through Yami, stilling him, because he heard: _what good is the gesture, you can't touch- _

Yugi swallowed, then turned. "I told you I can't do this now. I'm not ready."

The Spirit stared at his back. "Yugi--"

"I said!" Yugi's hand shot up to silence him, his voice tight. "Not now."

_Please just stay away and leave me alone for a while._

Yami found himself, suddenly, solid. He winced at the mental lock off of an important piece of him, Yugi's mind and heart going out like a rug yanked from under. But Yugi was emotional. Emotional people were rarely reasonable, stable. He himself hadn't been when Joey was nearly lost in the final battles against Malik, and after... Yugi...

He let himself fall back onto the couch, too distracted to notice the sensations that normally overwhelmed him pulled into the real world where siting on furniture was an experience all its own.

Well that hadn't gone very well at all.

For the thousandth time he asked, _What am I doing wrong?  
_

Of course, there wasn't much time for Yugi and the Pharaoh to argue about much beyond whether Kaiba deserved five more minutes of life. Yugi was incredibly easy to get along with, and Yami was grateful just to beat above Yugi's warm heart in the Puzzle, than a greedy soul trying to manipulate his powers. Sarcastically he thought then he'd probably have to wait _another_ thousand years for a new host...

Still, Yugi used to depend on him. Need him. It was immature, but now Yami didn't know how to compete against another ghost. And that Yugi wasn't so...open, anymore.

It wasn't that he regretted his emphatic decision to raise Yugi's self-esteem and consequent independence. Yami was just… a really selfish prick. Especially after Battle City. He remembered Yugi's tears, the need Yugi always had to know that the Pharaoh was doing fine. _I don't want to lose you, I'll fight for your memories. I don't want to mess up…_ During it he wanted to hold him to let him know it was all right because he _knew_ Yugi would do his best… he was so confused, both of them were. And both of them were scared on the different degrees of different topics.

_I don't want to lose you either Yugi, not to this, you called us a team and I don't know how to do anything without you._

But really, what _had_ he expected? That things would stay that way, he would lock Yugi away when everything was messed up until he took care of everything? That he could just solve everything with manipulation and swift judgment? Doma had proven his struggles with recapturing a true heart. Of course Yugi would grow up, he was mortal and human — and _Yami_ was the one who was dragging him down the stupid path because it was 'what was best for him.' He was the one teaching his partner (_your little protegé pharaoh-boy_) to stand up right, because… because he _saw_ -- he looked in Yugi and saw a blooming _greatness_ Yugi didn't realize...

And he was the one who was going to leave him, because Yugi deserved to have a full life. Not one chained to an ageless presence.

He backtracked, the pain of imaging that moment always too much.

Yugi was mortal and human… he was not. He _used_ to be, Ishizu proved that for him, but he wasn't anymore. Problems there.

He remembered waking up. _Fully_ waking up. Like being born, like dying, like being burned, like being frozen. Being aware of suffering. He'd lashed out; he couldn't help it. After being 'asleep' that long, and only to wake up to emotional hurt, loneliness, hope, and fear, he was, well, pissed that anyone would dare such a thing even when he realized it wasn't himself being threatened. He raked a hand through his hair. And…that had made him, if possible, even more angry. After all, humans could break so, so easily. One misstep while going down the stairs; one little accident of being at the wrong place or time…

One little heart murmur, triggered and flaring when confronted with shock…

It would be over. Being mortal meant always keeping a balance, and he had sworn long ago to risk anything to keep that balance from tilting in the disfavored direction where Yugi was concerned.

But then came Doma, and came addressing the depth of his arrogance in a way he'd have preferred to have gone without. He'd forgotten Yugi, he'd forgotten his promise to never betray Yugi's authority over his body, he'd forgotten anything but wanting to win, and then _he'd lost him_, and nearly given up on everything. And then everyone had forgotten Solomon.

The sick feeling in his stomach returned again. Yugi was distancing himself now in a way that didn't sit right with him, on a level he didn't understand, even if it was the natural flow of things. Because he did not have to listen. Because Yami was going to leave. Because Yugi was _Yugi_ and all his strength and power was something Yami really knew had actually been there all along, and might well be stronger than him, now.

Yugi might even hate him. Yami closed his eyes in pain. Resent him, even, for still being here when Solomon couldn't come back. The Spirit would have. It was a factual, ninety percent possible possibility _he_ hated, always had shoved into the back of his mind: Yugi, his guide, young friend, and partner, whom he saw as his second chance, turning away and seal off entrance to his heart for good? His breathing cut short.

It felt exactly like Doma, seeing only failure in the spirit Yugi's hateful eyes, but without Yugi breaking through Yami's walls and helping him fight again, forgiving him; it was like Pegasus' castle, but Yugi so terrified of him he actually did choose to die than trust him.

Yugi had been disappointed in him before, angry, outright pissed off, but underneath it was the frustration that came with l — whatever they shared in their deep bond.

Yami opened his eyes and the first thing his eyes identified was the pictures scattered across the top of the television. He got up from the couch and walked over to them, concentrating on each.

It was middle he really wanted, really focused on. A delicate silver frame, the casing held the only picture he had ever seen of Yugi's family. Yugi's young mother, slim, long arms held her son close to her chest-the instinctive motherly fashion as she sat on the oak chair in casual jeans and shirt. The father…Yami did not know why, but he felt a pang of annoyance. A tall man with a proud stance, he stood next to the mother and child. His hair style nothing like Yugi's but neutral probably for the cross-cultural customs he had to endure. The eyes were normal; not like Solomon's piercing eyes Yugi would one day grow into. The father leaned over just so to catch an almost protective, yet distracted air over his family. Both of them did: looking towards the camera with that vacant, distant look belying their smiles and telling they wanted to be elsewhere.

He studied Yugi, eyes seeming even larger on a smaller head, titled slightly more toward his mother, tiny hands folded over hers. But even then they were alive, full hidden strength and freely given happiness. A large part of old Solomon's finger poked in the upper right corner of the shot.

The Spirit suddenly felt an ache. Longing. Jealousy. Sadness. His gaze left the photo and turned to brooding the carpet into submission.

He had no such memories. He wasn't even sure he could rightly claim the fondness he thought he'd felt for Solomon.

Who was he, without Yugi? Nothing; nothing at all, and it was just one secret of many he kept from Yugi. The duel with Dartz and Yugi's soul flying so quickly into his hands…

At first, after all he'd been through to have him back, he felt terrified he'd kill Yugi then, break him. It was like holding an infant for the first time (a memory which he really didn't even remember), something so small, and so bright and so…warm. Somehow Yami knew no other soul, even as noble as Joey's or as gentle as Téa's, could ever hope for their soul to feel like Yugi's. And for a while Yami wondered what would happen if he kept Yugi in a little protected ball like that. Kept him safe and off limits from anyone else.

He would never let Yugi know that, but he_ would_ help Yugi, he would protect him and adapt to whatever lengths it took to accomplish such. Even if this, in the end, could be in his final gift, before he gave Yugi the greatest gift of all: his own life again. Even, with private selfishness, if this meant putting everything else on hold and being with Yugi longer, against Yugi's wishes. Even if this was totally different from just mind crushing everything in sight.

…He was definitely outside his element. He had no idea what the hell he was doing when it didn't require a yes or no question, explosives, or a dark game with Shadow magic cackling around him.

And yet despite all this Hathor be _damned_ he would get Yugi through this.

Or die trying.

--

NOTES

Ugh Yami… He's so hard I want to smash his head against the table… creators can't really seem to make up their mind if he's psychotic or not. But he went bat shit insane when Yugi 'died' in Season 1; so in my defense I have that to go on.

And that other quote takes place after the Bandit Keith-really Marik-thing. Loved it how when Yugi said 'I don't want to lose you.' And Yami took his hands and said: 'I believe in you, Yugi.' :tears up: Admittedly, not as poignant and obvious as the Japanese version (which...really just SCREAMS 'gay'), but still.

--


	3. like spiders on my skin

Summary: Alt. post-Doma/battle city approach. Old man Solomon suffers a massive heart attack at Doma…and everything changed. Yugioh stubbornly accepts being attached to an increasingly reluctant Yugi just as Yugi accepts stubbornly smacking the Puzzle at the wall. This is 99 percent likely to not be full blown R-rated yaoi. Think lots of subtext. Like Lediz, or Scribber's AUs. ;3 I love her writing.

Disclaimer: No rights to YGO. Or Atemu would have admitted how gay he was for Yuugi by slamming him up against the wall in their soul room and—excuse me.

--

_Stop tell me where you going  
Maybe the one you love isn't there_

-- Lifehouse

--

He wasn't at the right funeral.

Yugi knew it the second he walked through the doors and the unfamiliar faces stared at him blankly. Yugi froze in his stiff grey suit — grey because he wasn't one or the other and his mother told him it didn't make sense for him to pretend to be white or black. It made as much sense to him as the tie with the Sennen Puzzles all over it around his neck.

He sat on the arm of a chair as the priest went back to his Aztec prayer for the dead body in the open casket. It was going to be buried right there in the hotel.

He wasn't at the right funeral: this was the McDonald's in the Four Seasons and he was supposed to be in Budapest with Dad to scatter someone's ashes in time for the fireworks.

Yugi got up and quietly backed out of the room, closing what was suddenly a hotel-room door and leaned against it, cursing his inadequacy. The wrong funeral! He couldn't even make it to Grandpa Yami's funeral in time! Some friend he was! He turned from the door (someone told him his friend had fallen off the top of the hotel and died — Joey'd missed the trampoline floating outside) and walked up the wedding aisle to the altar where Téa was waiting for him with her pretty face hidden under a veil.

The benches were full of smiling people he knew, with those who tried to kill him on the left and those that were a mix of those he didn't know and those he definitely knew were dead on the right. Those he knew and didn't try to kill him on an hourly basis were bridesmaids and best men, because the priest made an exception for him being as he had so many. Téa was smiling beneath the veil and suddenly it was a movie and she was taking Yami's hands while Yugi watched holding a digital camera from his place in front of Joey on the stairs to watch the exchange of rings.

It flipped again and Téa was sliding a ring on his finger and flicked his Sennen tie with a dark laugh so unlike her it made him want to run away or kiss her. He had a choice about that at least… didn't he? He looked up and saw Yami standing where he had been earlier, smirking with the camera.

"I don't like the tie." Yugi said to him, "How come you don't have to wear one?"

He smirked wider and took a picture of Yugi's clueless face that he would keep for himself and put in his wallet, and Yugi knew that because it was movie-verse again, and Yugi could hear what everyone was thinking and saying, like how he could hear his dad muttering in the back "at the reception I'm going to dye Yugi's hair one color so he can be a man."

"Repeat after me," Father Shaadi intoned, clamping his book shut and with his newly free hands he forced Yugi's head to stay pointing at the Pharaoh. "I do take thee until the day I die."

"I do!" Téa chirped happily and clutched her flowers, because Yugi was down again and Yami was looking down at him from the groom's position where Yugi had been only seconds before. The king was sliding a ring on Téa's finger but was it was a transparent ring. He stared at Yugi while he did it and said "I do."

"Why's the ring transparent?"

"Because it's around your neck," Yami chided affectionately.

Yugi looked down at the Puzzle tie. "What?"

"Take your pick." Shaadi tapped his shoulder impatiently with the Key. Because Yugi had flipped places again.

Yugi stared at Téa. "I don't want to pull back her veil." He said to Shaadi.

"You don't have to," Shaadi explained patiently.

"Yeah, Yuge, you said 'I do' remember?" Joey laughed, downing a glass of champagne.

"But… you said I didn't have to pull it back…"

"You don't have to. You married her. So now you're with the Pharaoh."

Someone else said that. Who?

He looked at Yami. "I missed your funeral."

"It's all right," Yami said from the lower step, extending his right hand to pull him away; he had the same expression when Yugi said to him 'I want to be with you always' (even though Yugi _knew_ he never said that…). "Just say 'I do,' Aibou."

What? "Ai-what? What does that—"

"Don't call him that," Joey interrupted.

Yami stood very still, very patient; Yugi couldn't look away, even when he slowly turned from the altar and his tie became a heavy, a pyramid made of sand and his ring finger was burning and hissing — he reached for Yami's hand and the floor under him dropped out past them all into darkness—

--

He tried to open an eye.

Was it even really open? He felt the muscles pull, but nothing changed. Just blank darkness enraptured past recognition, swirling with darker and darker shades of damned black.

Hypnotic and tempting.

Lustful and never satisfied. Greedy. Hungry.

His heart contracted painfully in terror. The Shadow Realm?

He thought of the darker Malik, the psycho Bakura… oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit!

As if the damned place was alive, it danced to let him know it had heard him.

"-i."

His eyes narrowed. "Who's there?" He called out into the darkness.

It was a soft whisper, but almost as if trying to contain its excitement, too: "-gi."

Wow, that explained everything. His breathing hitched and he was too freaked out to contemplate his ability to be sarcastic to avoid having a heart attack. He acknowledged that yes, blood trickled down his face but he was more annoyed that it itched like hell. He tried to wipe it away, but pain exploded up his bones when he attempted to do so.

Yugi tried to keep himself calm as his normal reaction was to scream and cry.

He was chained. To something…

'Don't scream.' He ordered himself. 'Ignorance is bliss remember.' This was especially important when he tried to reason why there was breeze in the muscle area of his shoulders that reminded him of a large, searing, open blister.

Instead, he curiously tugged at the substance pulling him back and heard the most ironically wonderful recognizable clang of metal hitting metal. 'Great. I'm shackled; my body is like hang-man all over again.' He didn't want to think about how when the cuff connected to the holding surface there was a spark between them and he'd seen gold. Gold that was jagged and…in pieces…and he didn't focus on the thing poking into his back, large and projecting out like the eye of—Instead he tried to focus on he felt like he just pulled his whole friggin' muscle in my entire frigging arm.'

THERE!

A faint popping noise, like an apologetic cough in the middle of an enclosed room.

Drowsily he lifted his head, searching through the darkness for the source of the noise. It was hard to stay awake and it was because he was dizzy from being slightly suspended and too much blood was dripping everywhere.

"-ugi."

It sounded...familiar. His feet sought to find contact with the ground, and when he scraped with his boot's tip toes he could find it. Grasping, he used his hands and found he could find a point for each center of his palm to dig into.

A shape billowing in the distance.

Not blinking from the shape, he ran his hand along the newfound edge. Odd, it ran down closer to his legs and horizontal above his head. It was a triangle shape… and it was gold…

His eyes were growing used to the darkness now, and he squinted at the figure not that far away from him. Was it really approaching? He leaned as forward as the chains would allow him. 'Interesting,' he thought as his heart began to pound. 'Is it getting…smaller?' It seemed that another Law of Reality was being broken, rather than growing larger in appearance as 'it' grew closer to him, it seem to shrink even more…

WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP!

Reeling back, his body automatically tried to cover his ears at the sudden blast of sound, only to be painfully yanked back down by the chain's force. Wincing, he flexed his left arm, trying to bring the feeling back into it. 'Damn, that was the only good arm I had left.'

What was that supposed to mean?

"Yugi!"

Eyes reverted back to the figure again.

It had sped up.

WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP!

It knew he was there.

Wind was picking up, dirt and ashes of who knew flew in his face, and Yugi choked uncontrollably at the masses piled up in his mouth. The more he spit out, the more replaced it. It was ashes, ashes and sand, bloody sand. What was more it hurt, and burned, pushing its way into his ears and eyes and pores as if to suffocate him that way...

Things were crawling on him. They slithered, hot and scaly with burns. They bit and stung.

They made him bleed.

He screamed out in pain before he could stop himself.

The figure seemed to pick up it's pace even further, shrieking and screaming and shrinking all the while as it detected exactly where he was.

"Yugi!"

WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP!

Yugi suddenly did not want this thing to come any farther. His heart pounded wildly as the darkness became even thicker, a gloved, clawed hand threatening to choke him.

WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP!

"YUGI."

Stinging, biting, hot burning liquids, choking, dizzy, screaming wailing-

"YUGI!"

WHUP WHUP WHUP!

"STOP IT!" He shrieked out into the rising noise and panic, he couldn't breathe anymore, and everything was spinning and spinning around and around as the noise kept building and building he felt he was going to blow up—

—silence.

Shaking, he allowed his body to the luxury to collapse as it panted and recuperated from the sweat.

Quiet.

'What was…that…' He gulped to calm his rapidly beating heart. It had been less than two feet away. 'Whup.' He thought.

The silence was deafening.

'Whup.' He thought. He thought of the noise, those too close damned dripping.

Dripping coming from him, yes, but also from…

"Dripping..." He murmured out loud. "Dripping with what?"

He peered out into the darkness.

Nothing. It had gone away. He breathed a sigh of relief. It had wanted him. . .

Sighing again as he controlled his breathing, he let his head sink down to his chest.

YUUUGIIII!

It pressed its face against his and he screamed in absolute horror as the half decayed corpse screamed back at him.

WHUP WHUP WHUP!

The blood dripped from its face, chunks of skin and dried blood coming off in great patches, bone decayed and cream white film oozed from its eye sockets. The things were bigger and slithering and biting sand was filling up his lungs...

WHUP WHUP WHUP!

He writhed and screamed, fighting, flinching, wincing away from the bony, decaying hands coming off in lumps as his Pharaoh ripped open his chest and his insides beneath the glow of his Horus Eye—

— he shot up in bed clutching his heart and heaving for breath.

A...

A dream.

His body was tight, sweaty. Fight or flight, but while sleeping you had nowhere to run from your own head.

'Oh my god.' His eyes were wide as he clutched the sheets, dizzy and sick and scared to death. He was alive. His heart was hammering in his chest like a stampede of elephants…

His heart -- his chest. His white ribbed, bleeding open chest…

Leaping out of the bed, he raced to the bathroom and promptly vomited his guts out into the toilet.

Falling back against the wall, he shook violently as his hands tightened on the towel rack bar above him. He forced his mind to think about how smooth it was, how white and pure and shiny and cool against his sweaty, burning skin…

"Yugi?"

He turned to face the King of Games standing in the doorway, surveying the damage of the bathroom with furiously concerned eyes.

Yami shouldn't be out; the Puzzle wasn't around his neck

Yugi couldn't help it; he had to laugh, horrified at his predicament. If he was _still_ dreaming…

He wanted to cry. He couldn't be attacked again twice, not now. He couldn't stand to be tested right now.

The Spirit stared at him, and made the usual move to go forward, help, blah blah blah. Yugi put up a hand to stop him.

Yami did so.

Yugi glared at him.

Yami stared right back.

Moments ticked by.

Yugi lost the glare and instead imitated the poker face.

Yami blinked.

Yugi turned away and wiped his mouth, still shaking but trying not to show it. "Sorry. Bad dream."

"_Yugi_—"

"I need to brush my teeth. And clean up. Can you…go?"

He felt a brush against his mind sternly but he snapped at it with a block in reflex. He couldn't stand to be touched when his heart was still in his chest.

When he turned the Pharaoh was gone.

--

"All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land."

-- Jack Kerouac

--


	4. buckle up

Disclaimer: I do not own _Yugioh_. The orgies would have never ended and the plot secret of _GX _would have been they were all Tea/Yuugi/Kaiba/Bakura/Tristan/Joey spawn.

--88--

_Where are we?__What the hell is going on?  
__The dust has only just begun to fall  
We're all spinning 'round again_

-- Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek"

--88--

He didn't want to talk to Yami.

Yugi stared out the window again, which he found himself doing a lot lately.

The Puzzle was humming again, as if gleefully aware of another disaster.

"I hate you." He told it.

The Puzzle did not seem to find this offensive at all. If anything, Yugi swore the damn thing was glowing a bit brighter, showing off its pride at being able to simply exist and make someone, somewhere, miserable.

Yugi shoved it off the bed.

The glowing stopped.

Not caring if the Shadows shot him with a bolt of lighting in his absent respect to them, Yuugi continued to stare out the window.

He'd had a stupid, god-forsaken nightmare.

Graphic, yet very, very, stupid.

Yawning, he could still picture himself there on the toilet. Passed out from sweat, adrenaline, tears, and lack of sleep. How gross. How pathetic, how stupid.

And he didn't hate the Puzzle. He'd die for it; he'd die for the Pharaoh. Simple fact.

'Blood!' He thought. 'Whup!'

Stretching cat-like (a comfortable habit adopted from the Spirit), he pondered what one should do in this sort of situation. He did not want to discuss his problems with a dead person.

His eyes widened at that cruel thought. Sure, Yami might not be alive, but he sure existed and given him…

_Everything._

'And that's what counts.' He reprimanded himself sternly. And Yami meant everyth… er, they were…

/He's all you got to save your ass now anyway./ That nasty little voice cut off him to simplify things.

Wincing as he grasped his leg (he had stretched it a bit too far too early in the morning), Yugi thought of the trunk in the attic. He could go up there today...

/Yami will still ask questions./

'Oh shut up.' Yugi snarled. He hated consciences, how he was bound by some higher power to always follow it and _want_ to follow it. Right then he hated Jiminy Cricket and all his pep talks about dreaming enough to make it all okay, because it was disturbing fusion of himself in a two-dimensional Disney meets Snow White context.

...He was missing the point of this entire thought scenario altogether.

He wasn't supposed to be like this, this was so completely out of character. But then maybe he was due to his own personal bout of selfish teen angst that everyone else seemed to be able to have without problem or criticism. For such sweet eyes, Téa had one every month (he blinked at that), and Kaiba had one every forty-eight seconds. Surely Yugi would go back to being the nice, amiable person once it ran its course.

He heard pacing, somewhere, deep in his head. Not actual footsteps exactly, but the mental walls that came as control slipped every now and then before reminding itself why they were up.

Yami…

…No talkie? Yugi nodded to himself. No talkie...not yet. But how to avoid...

The Puzzle, the dresser.

"Duh." He muttered dismally as he looked out into the morning sky. He opened the window, and suppressed a shudder as the cold morning wind embraced his unready body. Folding his arms on the sill, he observed the sleepy neighborhood. Such a seemingly dull suburb.

Breathing in the air, his sharp eyes surveyed his way out. He had done this before, countless times once he realized the Pharaoh could not follow him without the Puzzle. Taking a deep breath, he took off the chain and sat it on the dresser, slow enough not to hurt it (which was a weird, obsessive thought), but fast enough to swing around and fly down the stairs to a distance he couldn't hear the Pharaoh's voice when he found out the distance of their connection.

It was sad how fast he flew to the main floor, the hairs on his neck standing up like Yami's hand would snatch the back of his collar and drag him back. It was ridiculous, Yami couldn't even touch him unless he was in his head (god his life was so weird…).

He swung open the door.

He put his foot out the door.

/Dolt./

After jumping and then realizing it was his own voice, Yugi sighed at the feeling something was wrong.

'Now what?'

/Nothing…/

'Fine, then shut up,' Yugi thought irritably as he stepped forward—

—and saw at once exactly what was wrong.

…Maybe he should change out of his flashy star pajamas.

--

/P.J.'s off, check?/

After deciding Jiminy Cricket was way better than Bitch!Cricket (which could have said a lot about his current situation if he wanted to take that honesty farther to himself), Yugi miraculously made it out of the house with so much as a scrape, diving in and out of his room, that would alert any attention from Yami in the darkness of the Puzzle, if he had even lowered his walls long enough to notice Yugi wasn't there anymore while he did his compulsive ( or was it obsessive? The Pharaoh _was_ doing it in his head…) pacing.

He hummed to himself. He was not bothered by the early morning traffic of a typical weekend. He wasn't bothered by getting flagged by a meandering Explorer either, trying to get back on the highway in halting sentences (as if speaking loudly did anything, he stewed, while the head of the family waved his arms to communicate). More Americans were coming in all the time, though a part of Yugi resented it since he didn't care for English much. It was such a weird, vague language that didn't really have much respect for anyone.

Shoving his hands in his pockets he allowed his mind to wander as well as the rest of him and enjoy the afternoon as guilt urged him on. Mud jammed up from tires missed him by a hair as the driver continued on without so much as an apology. Typical: rain and dirt mixing matter-of-factly and dragging nests of blackened twigs, rusty cans, broken umbrellas to poor gutters. Bits of sodden newspaper blew across the little dull strip of grass in front of one of the local churches. Yugi decided that would be his first bet for the day.

An ordinary teenager performing a less-than unusual performance of respect would mean nothing to anyone. It wasn't like he had 'pagan' tattooed on his forehead or anything, none would be the wiser. And since the pharaoh wasn't in control he wasn't wearing a cow bell for anti-Catholicism on his body either, or the buckles and leather the Pharaoh was obsessed with. He'd be left alone there.

It was colder inside than out; the air in there was still and old. The scent of polish and dust was everywhere as Yugi walked between the wooden pews. A chilly staircase spiraled up to the more private room of worship. Cobwebs here and there obscured the little slit windows in thick, worn layers, like a flower ready to wilt. He searched the empty belfry, with its wooden louvers and evidence of a constant stream of intruding population.

Nothing. He smiled as he traipsed up the stairwell. Perfect.

For hours he stood up there, losing himself in the quiet as his headache subsided for what he hoped was a long time.

--

DamndamndamndamnDAMN THAT BOY.

The Pharaoh was pissed.

Actually that was an understatement. Fire couldn't burn hotter than his eyes right then, no dragon could clutch claws and scrape them harder than _he_ did across the throne arms and Puzzle. Ooooh, if this was the Egypt that Ishizu harped about so much then by _Ra_ would he have that kid _locked up every god-forsaken night_ and if he _dared_ to cross the line he'd--

He'd--

…

_Oh stuff it._ Yami gave up. He'd do nothing

Falling back on his throne, Yugioh allowed his legs relax, amazed he hadn't cracked the floor with the pressure and Shadows that had been coming off of him. 'I do wish that Yugi would at least stop whipping the Puzzle wherever he damn well pleases,' he glowered. 'It's not the most pleasant experience to explain to the Dark that I can not control one, vertically-challenged young boy.' And it wasn't like Yugi suddenly lost all his brain cells and left the Puzzle lying somewhere in the open accidentally; ie, his dresser where it was stolen before. Oh no, that was on purpose, that was defiance, that was a youth's way of sticking out their tongue provoking, 'you have no power over me'…

With Yugi, nothing was easy anymore.

The Spirit leaned forward, clutching his bangs. _Gods_.

Last night he'd felt it, that nightmare, begin and couldn't stop it. Dammit! He'd wanted to snatch Yugi, or the nightmare, when he sensed the storm rip the memories…or if he had been quick enough before Yugi really woke up he'd have made him forget it. Anger at the Darkness's temptation to poke at his Yugi like that when he was sleeping and completely defenseless against them, even more so than he was all the time with the recent events…

_Their tool of choice was interesting as well, no?_

He grit his teeth, back tensing. Yes, that was what had infuriated him the most. He loosened his grip at his hair. Yugi was torn up inside by the loss of his grandfather, his parents dealt with it by…doing whatever the hell they did when they forgot his existence, he was being shoved information by Shaadi and Ishizu, told that he was old enough to deal with it when he clearly _wasn't_ and he was scared of Yami, possibly angry at him for causing Doma, causing _everything_ with his messed up memories and powers and would _never_ admit it because he…idolized him or whatever and was… confused by him. Right now Yami knew it all: Yugi's mind was far too chaotic to deal with the strain of blocking the thoughts from him. And it wasn't used to hiding things from him anyway, because…whatever they were…it was always open and full of trust even with the slight fear that…

Why was Yugi scared of him? Because he was a ghost, a super-natural being with abnormal powers that could strike the poor boy down at any given moment, had killed/maimed/tortured people from both ancient and present time periods beyond recognition with a wrist flick, summoned monsters parents assure their children did _not_ exist…

He rolled his eyes, yes why wouldn't Yuugi fear him even after an oath of protection and a seemingly 180 degree personality and value switch? If Yami were in the same situation, he would feel exactly the same.

He swallowed. Er, actually, if someone had been taking over his body and caused the end of the world _several_ times he'd have smashed the Puzzle with a mallet and tossed it in the ocean. He would have debated strengths and weaknesses to defend himself should the need arise and always keep that information close, it would be a thing to hold back, a thing not to piss off. Yugi was a smart boy, and sometimes Yugioh found it was smart to be scared rather than be ignorant and obnoxiously boastful. Or trusting.

Yami would have exorcised the thing once he started blacking out, and honestly Yami wouldn't trust himself for jack in general with anything. _Especially_ with Yugi, and especially after Doma.

Why did Yugi hate him? Ever since day one Yugi, his friends, and his family had been placed in danger of other ghosts with one thing on their mind: death and world domination… or a combination of the tw.; Yami had smite fellow classmates (as grotesque as they were as classmates) with families and world imprints without a thought, and was not helpful as a person in the role as brother, friend or father.

And maybe that was the biggest problem: it wasn't so much that he wasn't helpful as much as it was that he didn't really _fit_ into specifically any of those aforementioned categories anyway.

Gods he had messed Yugi up. Gods… this one was what the Game King hated most to admit when he was near Yugi: he wasn't alive. He could not bleed, and his heart stopped long ago, the only way of touch was the coldness of a spirit as ancient as his, the only communication was through their connecting heart, their minds, or Yugi's own mouth. He couldn't be a real role of family or friend, never see Yugi play a game or sport without actually experiencing it with him. All of this and yet be a version of Yugi so polar with his own heart and mind…

And quiet. Yami never really spoke unless Yugi initiated conversation or the world was three seconds from ending.

Yugi had a right to every emotion he felt, or would develop: the closest person was gone and next…thing… was an… an _entity_ he couldn't even relate to on any level. As the images of Yugi's nightmare swept passed, Yami felt shame in not blocking it. He could have. He had seen it start before the Shadows had yanked him into his own as it related the pain he felt to what could have been an ancient memory from his final days as Pharaoh. Could have been. He was never really sure what they were.

In a way, the end of the dream had been of the Spirit's own from a different perspective. He'd been going through the rooms again and was hit with a blast of something old and spiteful. And he'd become lost, his death behind him, so close he could hear its acrid breath and its razor-sharp hands clawing for him so close so close so close god he had never run so fast his life.

It had wanted him or Yugi, he couldn't tell, just had to get away from it.

But he hadn't been able to. It started to _become_ him, attaching to him, melting his skin and yanking his hair, moaning and laughing and dying and birthing all at once, a thing that could only build by others, not possession, it built on top of them. And it breathed in his ear as muck-like goo substances clogged him down: "Yugi's next." His death, his pain, his imprisonment and torture…seeking another…

And he'd fought it, pushing forward and not carrying how his old body melted away, how the jewels of his crown was swallowed up and every step was a struggle as he tried to warn him, wanting to save Yugi by pushing himself away, dig his heels in and _stop_ the death from overlapping.

But his heart was too selfish with want to see him again, that if they were together they could stop it. And then he saw him, his light shining with that fire, and Yami saw him beaten and torn and chained to the Puzzle, but still full of life as he stared defiantly into the darkness and daring it to push him further. In that moment Yami realized how proud he was of him. God, he was dying but he didn't care because he had made sure Yugi would be strong enough to fight it, he'd give him his magic and essence for power of everything and anything and nothing — he knew for sure in a second that Yugi was so precious and amazing and oh gods it hurt so much as he fought and moved against and with the demon reaching for the smooth face...

The blessing of being free from the nightmare had brought another: Yugi's. If only he hadn't been so selfish, if only he truly lived up to being an immortal god as pharaoh, if only if only if only.

Yugi throwing up relieved them of both their pain and disgust.

He wasn't strong when it came to Yugi outside of a strictly life slash death slash saving the world scenario. And said scenario had to have monsters and shiny things, war games. He was weak when it came to Yugi in a way that terrified and also… something else he didn't understand. Normal days, the few they had… He smacked the back of his head against the throne. He was dying in that dream and bursting at the seams of uncontrolled power, but he'd made a beeline straight for his partner anyway and expected a hug!

Smack smack. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Tracing the pure gold Puzzle pieces tightly, Yami sent an angry bolt of energy to the Shadows. Almost instantly in the darkness there, a painful hiss erupted from a corner, a promise of pain later when he dosed to darkness himself.

"Deal with it," he growled, indifferent to his impending torture of memories of Death and Sealing. His grip on the Puzzle tightened. "You are to never do that again to the boy."

Silence was his answer.

His thoughts always drifted back to Yugi when he wasn't in meditation. His nails both dug and relaxed at the image of him. He wondered where he went off to.

Smack. He was horrible at this.

No, he'd never hurt Yugi, no matter how fleetingly mad he was at him. Even if Yugi threatened to stab him with a knife, Yami wouldn't lift a hand in stopping him. He'd even supply him it if that was what he asked of him. He'd supply him with anything. He had to laugh darkly at the image of Yugi kicking and screaming while he threw a key to the cuffs connecting their wrists into the Nile, and passively waiting out until his throat was raw before dumping a few pounds of gold and diamonds in lap to shut him up for a bit. Even if Yugi was not a material person, Yami was not above bribery to win his affection… since being the most powerful being walking around was not enough…Yugi was normally so agreeable and so easy to l…

It was too late, had been for a long time. Even if Yami was God in Egypt like Ishizu claimed, Yugi would have been placed above God where every wish granted immediately or death to all. He would help him through this. Yugi put his whole life on hold and on the line so Yami could find his memories, without a thought of himself…it was the least he could do for him…

Something rustled in the darkness but Yami paid it no mind. Taunt him the Shadows might, but both the King and Evil knew that they would never dare to defy a direct command from their ruler concerning the boy. Ever.

--

Light poured down on him so that his hair looked even more bizarre than normal as he watched the worshippers come through the doors at sunset. And as he gazed down at them along the rows of shiny brass plaques and leaded side windows, he heard on of the women say in a quiet voice, "Look! Up there at the staircase! Isn't she pretty?"

Yuugi bit down a retort and focused instead on a statue of some lost warrior. Yes, he knew he looked like a girl at points but damn why did everyone have to be so stupid?

'If everyone walked around naked,' he thought, 'then I would never have to deal with anything like this.' But with everything there is an excuse. Yuugi had no doubt that Joey's sniggering excuse would be and resisted screaming how unfair every aspect of his life was.

Wishing the woman all seven hells, and then taking it back because it was…well… _mean_, the only Mutou in Domino decided it time to leave. Strolling down the stair at a quick pace and ignoring the woman's gasp of realized truth as she took in his very male clothing, he thought it safe to say he'd reached the point in every teenage boy's life to embark on the illegal and thrilling, grand ol' adventure of the closest beer where there was no ID check.

--

"Yugi! YUUUUUGI!!"

"Ya know, Téa, it might be just me, but I take it dat when Yugi doesn't answer the door it means he's not—OWWWW!"

Vein popping, Téa redirected her attention away from a fuming Joey and a trying-not-to-laugh-so-I'll-politely-cough-instead Bakura. "He hasn't even returned my calls." She said softly, staring up at her friend's bedroom window.

"The shop's locked up tight," Tristan called as he trotted up from around the corner. "All lights are out, and everything's bolted."

Impulsively, as was her nature, Téa yanked on the door knob one last time. "God…damn it!" She yelled, and her three male companions jumped.

"Téa!" Joey chided, wagging his finger, "That's such foul language around—OW! WHAT THE HELL! CAN YOU JUST QUIT THAT ALREADY?!"

"Don't be a smartass around a mother hen, my man." Tristan sighed. "And keep your voice down; I don't feel like getting called on by the cops for disturbing the peace."

"Why I otta…"

"Bakura?" Téa questioned as the soft-spoken exchange student pulled out his wallet.

He smiled as a VISA shone in the porch light. "Don't tell…I only use this power for good." He laughed lightly at their blank looks and gesturing to the plastic card and door, inserted the edge into the lock. Frowning, he concentrated for a few moments when a resounding 'click' came. Twisting the knob, the door opened with ease. "Dang!" Joey exclaimed as the boy put his card back, "What other magical powers do you have?"

"I am a man of many secrets..." He murmured in his best eerie voice as possible, which was difficult with Tristan giving him a noogie and Téa hugging his blushing face.

The band proceeded into the small kitchen, Téa tutting in typical fashion at the dishes begging to be washed in the sink.

Also in typical fashion, Joey made a bee-line for the fridge. "Aw man! When's the last our little guy made it to the grocery store!" He whined as he rummaged around.

Tristan frowned as he opened the cupboards. "Maybe that's where he is now," he offered as he opened door after empty or useless door. Where…where the plates and, um, other eating things? His brow furrowed. His mother must have taken them with her, or something. Weird.

Téa tossed some dirty chopsticks, empty Mac cartons and…oooh _boys_.

"This isn't like him," She pulled a stray lock of hair behind her ear. It was her curse when she was stressed or in this case, worried.

"Yes, he's usually the one on our backs about being open, isn't he?" Bakura had a bundle of old newspapers in hand, along with some plates he'd found in the living room. Though his hands were full, the perfectionist in him would not allow him to pass by the picture underneath the clock that was off by precisely fifteen degrees.

Mail was overflowing the computer room, piling on the desk, chairs and floor. Some stacks were ordered and piled accordingly, others half-heartedly dumped…some were clearly abused by means of ripping, shredding and throwing after the person of anger had then left the room.

"Bill, bill, bill, junk, bill, credit card notice, shopping card offer, bill, bill, bill, PORNO INVITE?!" Joey fell to the floor with a thump, clutching the thick paper like a life-line. "Man, Yugi gets all the good stuff—hah! You missed—OWWW DANG IT TÉA!"

"Grow up..." Téa muttered as the blond fumed and sobbed as she threw the NC-17 contents into the shredder.

"Screw this, I'm getting a protective BUBBLE and beeper letting me know where the heck you are..." Joey continued to mutter darkly, wincing at the sound of the machine stealing his hopes and dreams in less than thirty seconds.

"This is a government warning."

Three heads whipped at Tristan, who had an open business book and holding a faded announcement paper. The paper itself appeared to have been folded several times, the owner unsure or forgetful as to what it was for...and if he wanted it.

He waved it at them. "Threats for repossession, foreclosure, all that confusing adult stuff."

Téa looked around and said softly, "Oh gods…The game shop…"

"He was getting old, following Yugi around to watch him play when he could," Bakura said. "Yugi's mother takes no interest in it and Yugi hasn't had time to help him with the physical labor. Solomon must have been cutting back on hours…"

"And income." Joey finished bitterly. It was the sort of things seventeen year olds weren't supposed to think about.

"At least Yugi doesn't drink..." Téa let the sentence hang, and sent a hopeful glance at Joey.

He looked uncomfortable. "Er," he said.

"Joseph Morelli Wheeler, if you took Yugi drinking—"

"Who do you think I am?" Joey snapped. "And leave my Granny's name outta this! And I wouldn't force Yugi into…okay yeah, I took him _once_. I needed…erm, never mind. I also had to see a guy cos he wanted me back in the gang and I refused. Didn't like that but let us go. Anyway, thought it smelled like shit, and tasted even worse. But, like other things he went with it." He stared at them solemnly. He supposed his teasing had something to do with it. "Didn't even finish his glass, swear to God, Téa. Whole time it was like he just wanted to leave and it was distasteful and pointless." _And just a little disappointed in me_, Joey winced. Not that he ever deserved respect from someone like Yugi anyway, not anymore. If he did to begin with...

"However," Bakura butted in, "that day when you two went out together have long since passed. That was just before Battle City. This is post-Doma, post a loved one: this is now, and Yugi's mourning seclusion is getting the worst of him out."

"Think we have an excuse for rummaging?"

"Even if Yugi broke our friendship for this I wouldn't care," Téa said stiffly. "He won't answer our questions so someone has to!"

"Everyone in assent?" Bakura asked.

Joey and Tristan stared at him. "What?" Tristan asked.

Téa rolled her eyes and simply grabbed Dumb and Dumber by their shirts down the hall. Bakura had the best view as they wandered the house, the whole time Joey and Tristan arguing over that two-syllable word's possible meaning.

"Ow! Gods Téa, WHY ME!?"

"You're the only one stupid enough to stand so close!" Tristan huffed.

"Get offa my back you stupid…" The dog lost his bark as he passed a guest bedroom… and Tristan realized that this must have been where all of Yugi's mother's dinner plates went…

They stepped around the little, pointed mess spilling slightly into the hall and the whole room grew silent as they caught sight of Yugi's room.

Naturally it was the worst room in the house. Objects were everywhere, some fixed and dropped, and model kits almost there but the maker had grown restless and bored, others forgotten completely. Clothes and the bed were the same way. A normal teenage boy's room who didn't have a lot of time as he ran in and out to deal with his…unique extracurriculars.

But it was newspaper clippings scattered everywhere that made them freeze.

"What." Tristan couldn't finish his sentence as he peered at a World Trade Center article from America, no doubt the final death toll.

"Infant found dead…officials say smothered…in Tokyo.." Téa read, horrified.

"Court case stalled by new information…parent declares Maukisoni Ginta molested her ten year old…scars and bleeding…tests positive..." Bakura's soft voice was even more grave than usual.

"What the fuck is this?" Joey had spoken for all of them in the most honest way possible. The thin cheap paper crinkled in the wind, the open window allowing the full chill to scare them all.

"Wait a minute." Téa looked around the room suddenly, more alert and cautious.

"What is it?" Joey turn to the door, tense and thinking, hoping that maybe someone had broken in and done all this and Yugi was all right.

"It's Yugi's Puzzle." She said. She pointed to the dresser where the Puzzle lay, going to the door frame and looking up and down the hall. "Where is he?"

"Wonder how that other poor guy's doing too," Tristan joined her and turned back the remaining duo.

A soft sigh was barely heard in the room, and it didn't come from the present fantastic four. The sound made Tea shriek in surprise and latch onto Honda's arm as the rest searched for the source, but Bakura heard it like a clear voice:

_Yugi, ..._

Startled but never the one to lose his head, Bakura called out into the room. "Hello? Hello, Game King?"

Tea started, looked around for him. The Pharaoh? Her heart sped up.

Bakura touched his head. "Ah," it felt like a headache; like someone found a hole in the side and was trying to slip in and _/A slip of a shadow, fighting for presence and…unbelievably frustrated/ _Bakura blinked in surprise. The Spirit had never tried to contact him before, especially not a visual contact of the mind. "Where's the Puzzle?" He demanded.

"Eureka!" Joey walked over to the dangerous treasure. "Who rules the search party!" Sweat drops were, needless to say, felt all around the exuberant blonde who was, needless to say, oblivious to these sweat drops. As if to prove his extreme intelligence further, Joey reached for the Puzzle.

WHAM.

"_Is this pick on Joey day or something?!_" was heard throughout the whole household, as Joey held his now-injured hand, hissing and cussing up a storm along with death glares at the innocent Puzzle.

"Powerful shit." Tristan observed as he inspected the moaning owner's hand from his new position against the dresser. It was red, and puffing. He frowned.

Blisters.

"Good going genius," Tristan said, but his eyes did not match the icy sarcasm.

"I guess Yugi's the only one who can touch it." Bakura leaned in close to the intricate cuts and angles of the puzzle from its innocent position on the dresser, quietly applauding once again at Yugi's expertise in solving them.

"My apologies."

"Aw, that's okay Pharaoh, I'll li—Pharaoh!"

"Your bond with Yugi grew strong to a point where I could expand the Puzzle's acceptance beyond him with...effort. An action that proved necessary considering past events." The pharaoh smiled slightly, not missed by Téa.

"We came because we were worried," she explained as he turned to her.

He chuckled darkly. "Join the club."

"Seems to have a growing membership."

The Game King stood before them, the usual aura surrounding him in all his glory. Kneeling in front of his friend Joey, he stroked the blisters...away. Literally at his touch the blisters faded, the hand completely healed.

"I still say we could use you at a rumble." Tristan mused at Yami's powers.

"Since the Puzzle acted like a security system, I'm guess you just took back the Dark magic causing pain?" Bakura finished closing the window and allowing the temperature to freeze them no more. Without thinking, he clutched his chest tightly where the Ring was, wondering if the Pharaoh was drawing his power from that to project himself without Yugi.

"Indeed," Yami replied, smiling a little at Bakura's widened eyes. His mouth was still formed, like he was about to say something else...but nothing came. This scared Téa a bit, even with all odds against them the Game King was always the one with the plan, the strategy and calm head. Not worried or looking like an abandoned animal! It was too much like Doma and she did not like to think about Doma…

"And...how have you been, Pharaoh?" Bakura asked, jolting Téa from her thoughts.

"How has anyone been?" He didn't have the answers or just didn't want to say them?

"Has Yugi been drinking up?" Joey said point-blankly. Tristan sighed. "What?"

He smiled again, but it was still as sad as ever. "I wouldn't advise a visit to the guest room. But no, that's actually…" He looked uncertain again of himself, his place with them, his trust with them.

Silence.

Joey looked away, shoving tight fists into his pockets

Téa stared. The Pharaoh just looked so...old. The full reality of just how old he was hit her. He didn't look like a handsome, undefeated champion of games...and her heart...He did not look like an awesome, feared ruler. He looked old, worn and used and tired. He looked like someone who'd been awake far too long, been denied sleep for far too long.

It was unnerving. Where was her hero?

"How is it we can see you?" Bakura asked.

The Spirit looked at him. "Through an excessive attempt with energy. I thought you were Yugi and I…wanted to talk to him since he took the Puzzle off."

Tristan checked his watch. "It's already half-past one in the morning you guys." He told them.

"We've been here for a while, going through things and cleaning and stuff," Joey explained to Yami, who nodded understandingly.

"I went through a lot of it myself while Pa—Yugi...was resting." He said, the exhaustion was showing even more now, the invincible man fading faster and faster than Téa could keep up with, her heart breaking as his usual, prideful walls flew up and he distanced himself. "I couldn't get very far, I couldn't..." His eyes closed, and his defiant posture slumped. "I didn't want to go very far." He didn't understand half the things of this world; things Yugi muttered under his breath over but performed like instinct: tax returns, phone calls, collectors… He felt useless.

"Take a break man," Tristan said in what he hoped was a comforting voice.

"Yeah, totally. Don't spend so much time worrying about Yugi that you forget if you're worrying about worrying or Yugi."

Eyes all around stared at Joey blankly.

"What? I try to give words of wisdom and everybody's a critic!" Huffing, he marched out of the room. "I'm going home!"

Bakura laughed a bit.

"Hope he doesn't fall down the stairs in his storm of anger," Téa muttered.

"What was that?" Furious almond eyes poked around in the door.

"Have you just been standing there eavesdropping?" Téa raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"So's what if I was?" The blond demanded.

"Téa," Tristan said. "We're going to look around Domino. But it's late. You stay here."

"Tristan Taylor, if this is one of those sexist things—"

"This is one of those drop it things," he said evenly. "If Yugi comes back, he'll know we've been worried."

Téa sighed. He was right.

"And then you can _comfort_ him, huh? Huh!" Joey egged slyly, nudging her shoulder.

The Spirit sighed and rubbed his temples while Joey was once again being flailed by Téa. Bakura, taking note of this, started to shove them out the door. "Come on you guys, let's go look for Yugi." He coaxed them as he nodded to Yami who gratefully nodded back before disappearing into the Puzzle again in a shimmer of light.

--

"I thouz I asked you a question, punk."

At that moment, Yugi was currently being harassed by a rat.

Yugi hated rats. This specific rat was the typical slum-creep who'd snorted something Yugi could live without knowing more about, and, since Yuugi didn't know his types of alcohol, either shots of vodka or something else that was unhealthy past the innumerable rounds of tiny glasses. The squinting, beady eyes were past unfocused; they looked like a Malik puppet. How this guy was even standing, drinking, thinking and forming words all at once was a mystery to Yugi, as he pondered his reply.

He didn't understand what the guy was threatened by, by him. Maybe his hair was just that intimidating.

Haha, yeah, that was him. Yugi was _really_ scary. Like a chinchilla.

"And I _thought_ you were incapable of thought, but we're all proved wrong at some point." He said blandly as he looked around for another possible seating position. Drinking, he found, made him a bit more cranky and sarcastic, but he had quite a lot of time, the idiot had sat there for over two minutes trying to figure out his bill. After he started muttering "carry the ones" Yugi knew this was a rat. After all, rats were dirty things, their naked scaly tail being their whip and downfall to drugs and alcohol. Its coat, rank and brown, seemed to have been slicked down in spikes with engine oil or worse. Its eyes, set wide on a sleek pointed head, glittered through his drug-filled haze like black beads. As its hands shook to bring his poison to his lips, those eyes darted into the shadows of his suppliers. Once or twice he stopped this and rose boldly from his seat to stroke the leg or arm of a woman...some were not women, but he was too doped up to tell. It was fully of stupidity and dirty intelligence only for the next beer and no further. His brain ran only on the high, the drink, and the sex.

It was a rat.

"Waugh!" He drunkenly snarled. "You's a stupidly kid. Whaa-" He gulped down another barrel of whatever, talking all the while as the liquid ran down his neck and over his already wet shirt. It was a full grown rat, and not afraid of much but losing the high. It lacked agility and intelligence, as the adult rats usually do, Yugi gathered. But it had plenty of gall, and what it lacked in brains it made up for in strength from needles.

"Sorry, what was that?" Yugi bit sarcastically as he flicked his gaze from the pathetic sight and back to his drink. Somehow next to this buffoon the appeal of a glass was lost. His wasn't even half-way empty on his second yet.

/Or even half-full!/ The voice cheerfully mocked.

"Shut up." He groaned, ready to smack his head against the table. And it was starting to eat at him that he hadn't even spoken to Yami in…he narrowed his eyes.

God he was pathetic, what a clingy little _boy—_

The fist came from nowhere and between seeing stars and the upcoming wet wood floor, Yugi was lost. After the disgusting impact, he sat up and clutched his stinging head trying to focus.

He didn't have long, the next thing he knew he was being yanked up by his long mane and being dragged out the door. Once upon a time the cool night weather had been a blessing when he had walked around in it, but this is all lost when your head is being smashed into the dirt. He struggled to breathe and thanked whatever god there was that at least the idiot had dropped him on his stomach rather than his back. But that didn't stop the few tears of pain from coming instinctively. Yelling and thrashing, he tried to crawl away from the fists and kicks as the drunk yelled: "DON'T YOU TELL ME TO SHUUUUUUUUUT UP!"

"I wasn't even talking to you!" He cried out, furious at his own weakness, his smallness, in _ineffectualness_. Inside he was amazed the guy had even heard him, or at least processed it so quickly. "What are you doing!" He screamed as a fist came at the back of his head, barely moving fast enough to dodge it. "STOP IT! LEAVE ME ALONE YOU STUPID MISERABLE—!" But his demands were not heard, and with each pound that finally made Yugi grew weaker, his vision collapsed at last as did he when the man picked him up and threw him into the wall hissing and spitting, his rat tail arms flicking and coming down hard.

--

I cannot believe I wrote this two...three years ago. It's bad, but really, I can only edit and improve where my younger self imprinted things.

I love that stuff to bits and go Y/Y, but that is not the case in this...or is it? I mean really, Yami went bonkers three days without him while Yuugi coasted through fourteen years with a smile on his face. I'm still working it out because to me it's obvious but I'm not sure to others outside of worshiping the pairing.

And I can see Yami taking over Yugi after he passed out after the nightmare, cleaning up the mess silently…and then pacing for the next six hours so he didn't snap.

Téa was scared because the image she had of this perfect guy isn't real at all, and just an image in the end. In the manga, it really shows how infatuated "Anzu" is with the Game King, but infatuation often leads to idealism, and these ideal are usually shattered in the end. I never got the sense in the Japanese anime or manga that she really likes Atem for who he is. The only one that I got the sense of that, ironically, was her "Téa" version in the English anime. Odd, I know, but she supported him like a friend in that one instead of blinders for a love interest, which is more powerful and selfless. Some called her plastic, but I found Téa more likeable and down to earth, like Tristan and Honda. Alas, her Anzu part is in this story because of…um…I think it's a plot but not really… :scratches back of neck:


	5. there is a light that's always on

Disclaimer: If I owned _Yugioh_, Kaiba + _Melancholy of Haruhi's_ Yuki would have happened. Somehow. They wouldn't even need sex to reproduce — exchanging internet data would have been enough and their babies would have taken over the world with their ability to know everything.

--

Breathe In, Breathe Out  
_  
We push and pull and we all fall down sometimes  
But if everything keeps moving on with the dawn  
I'm not letting go  
No, I'll hold the other line and if everyone else goes away  
I will stay_

--

Téa Gardener paced in the otherwise abandoned house in time with her heart. She was trying hard not to think depressing thoughts, but that wasn't working so well.

Sometimes it felt as if it was just her boys against the world armed with nothing but a toothpick and their few years of experience compared to immortals with power. It was always unbelievably unbalanced and unbelievably unfair.

_And despite that, Yugi…Yugi takes care of us all._

She slowed her pacing.

No matter how many times she thought she resolved and accepted, every time she had to face this fact it always slapped her face: That she couldn't protect him, couldn't protect her Yugi the same way he so selflessly did for the world every day.

She sat on the couch's arm, eyes fixed on the door while she tapped her foot. She kept crossing and uncrossing her arms, reaching over to the phone set she'd set next to her on the couch and checking the dial tone was still working just to keep herself from _screaming_ in the silent house.

There was nothing wrong with the phone. They would have called if they needed her. She had to believe that.

All preparations aside, she still jumped out of her skin when the boys burst through the door, Joey with Yugi clamped over his shoulder in a fire-man's carry.

At the sight of him (and oh gods, even more when she saw his face), Téa yelped, leapt to her feet, and moved so fast she almost smacked into Bakura trying to see the ugly dirt, bruises and gashing _cut_--"Oh _Yugi_…" She moaned, her heart breaking.

"What happened?" She demanded, reaching for him, but Joey steamrolled right past her up the stairs. "What happened!" She grabbed Tristan's arm.

He started to speak but then changed his mind, dragging her up the stairs. Bakura disappeared into the kitchen.

They were in his bedroom, which was silent because Téa had snapped ten minutes after being alone in the house with the clipping and hearing the ghost flutters, and ended up just taping them all down (she didn't want Yugi to be mad at her if she _took_ them down). Yugi was arranged safely, softly in his bed without a sound.

If he had a concussion she would personally beat the shit out the thing that did this. And then she would cry…shouldn't they take him to the hospital?

"Wait, wait," Tristan interrupted as Joey moved to inspect his chest, dazed because he had to do this with more than one gang buddy once upon a really crappy night. "Get his shoes off, first." The two worked together, until Yuugi's Brazilian sneakers were dropped off to the side before managing to get the unconscious boy comfortably under his sheets and blankets.

"I found a kit." Bakura said, holding up a little white box with red hiragana. Téa took it from him and searched around the alcohol swabs for something mellower so Yugi wouldn't wake up being attacked with stings, even if it would clean it better. Neosporin. She untwisted the cap and slowly, gingerly went to her Yugi's side and butterfly soft applied it under his eye after cleaning it gently with a damp cloth.

Bakura stood back and turned so out of the corner of his eyes he could see Yami.

_/"It takes great energy…I thought you were…"/_

It was an odd new talent to pick up in the space of so few hours. Convenient, considering his somewhat ominous track record. A little too convenient perhaps, but Ryou was a little too tired to question it. He felt, perhaps, once your soul was touched by another it could recognize that other's presence when you focused enough. Like with the voice in his head that had been too quiet lately, and yet he could always sense him there…_think about that later_. Now that he knew what the Pharaoh's presence looked like, if Bakura used his occultist meditations he could pick up the Puzzle inhabitant's 'vibe.'

Or whatever.

And he found that said spirit was as far pressed into the wall away from them as he could manage (even though he couldn't even be seen), arms crossed, studying his…Yugi, with a single-minded intensity that seemed to be normal for him. Even when Téa gently wiped his face clean with a cool cloth, Bakura noticed the Pharaoh's fingers at his arms twitch spastically and his eyes narrow.

Yugi looked _terrible_. His face was too white — it made the circles under his large eyes and his shiny bruises stand out in ghoulish contrast, like a rag doll run over by a car in the rain. Bakura silently watched Yami shift, like an antenna up, as Yugi murmured something, too soft to be heard or matter as Téa finished and eased backwards off the bed. Yugi twitched his head a little, eyes tightening and closing like he was trying to dodge whatever was bothering him, briefly gaining consciousness, then falling into deeper sleep again.

Again, Bakura contemplated who was the lucky one here. The happy-go-lucky kid in a slump with a king in his head he was doom-ingly attached to…who would leave him. Or the solemn foreign kid with a killer in his head who never spoke to him and might be dead anyway. It was a rather difficult call, to say the least.

And there they all were, in that small room with younger toys that never struck them as nothing more than what Yugi was to them, and what they wanted so badly. They all…existed there, when Téa stood up. They watched him, so close and far away and hating it for an excruciating amount of minutes until Bakura said, "Let's go downstairs."

"I gotta watch him." Joey argued hotly.

For someone wrestling with self-loathing, now that he was here Joey was acting like the only way he could be unglued from Yugi was with jaws of death pliers.

Bakura smiled in an attempt to communicate that he might not understand, but he did see and accept Joey's point of view. "Someone else already is," He said with confidence, and the Pharaoh started in his position and looked at Ryou like he'd never seen anything like him. Bakura met his eyes briefly with a subtler smile before gesturing assuringly to the rest of the Scoobies. "Yugi will be fine, I think. Let's just…wait."

There was a stubborn pause.

Then, Téa stood up, walked over to Joey, and pulled his hand into hers. She wiped off dirt still clinging to his shirt absently, then pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Come on Joey. He's not going to understand how to react to all of us. We don't want to embarrass him, right?"

Joey's movements, though sluggish, were caving to exhaustion of his previous worry and anger, and the soothing logic of his friend's simple words. "I found 'im at the…the corner at Milo's or Mad Mex. Some loser, probably. Yuge probably never saw it coming."

"We can sleep in the den," Téa agreed, "Tristan can call the school and forge excuses for us using the fax machine."

_Just like old times_, the sentence hung in amused bitterness.

Some started on the couch, or on the recliner. Eventually they sprawled all together on the floor by five in the morning. And here's the thing; they didn't look at each other much past gestures of 'yo dude, Oreo in your teeth', of 'lay off the texting with Duke, Téa, and get to bed.' They didn't speak much about anything life altering. They didn't beg each other for anything life altering.

It's this, these small hours when anyone else would be watching info-mercials, that Yugi's enemies never understood, that Bakura's malicious ghost always underestimated: Joey snoring but Tristan just letting it go. Téa getting handed the softer pillow. Solomon grinning at them from several silver frames around the room. A small light on in another room for Bakura's peace of mind without even a teasing shot from Joey. No one really a respectable distance away from another on the carpet had a prim adult walked in.

Only someone who knew it already would understand: they already gave each other all they had, every day.

--

Outside it was so hot that the roses in the courtyard already smelled as sweet as if it were afternoon. The Beatles were playing on his father's boom box as Yugi stood under the tree growing in the front garden by the driveway; his father washing the Jeep.

"I'm a Yugi." Yugi said. He didn't know how old he was, though he tried to show with his fingers until Momma smiled sometimes.

"You_ are_!" said his father. He wiped his hands on a towel and kissed the top of his head.

"Spray me with the hose!" squealed Yugi, and he did.

Yugi giggled and wriggled in the rainbow water. Then he sat in a bucket and his father wrapped a Spiderman towel around him. He liked the way it felt to fit his whole self into the bucket, safe, and no one else his age could still do it, not even Téa. He watched his father washing his car. Daddy wore baggy plaid shorts and sunglasses that looked like the tiny Beatles records he played.

"Time for breakfast," his mother called.

Yugi didn't want to get out of the bucket where he fit so perfectly. His father had to pick him up, kicking and wiggling, and deliver him into a chair that was too big. He missed his bucket. He might not fit into it so well in a few days. His mother brought bowls of oatmeal with bananas and honey.

_Yuck_, thought Yugi. Too hot for oats. If he had been able to stay in the bucket he might have eaten them. He slid out through the back of the chair.

"Where are you going?" his father asked. "Come back down and eat your breakfast like a good boy."

He ran across the blue-and-white kitchen floor to the refrigerator with taped pictures of Grandpa's funny house he went to sometimes. He pulled on the door with both hands. He climbed inside, using the vegetables bins as stairs, and reached up. The bag of frozen peas hit him on the head as he feel backward onto the floor. It didn't hurt much but he cried anyway.

His mother ladled him up.

"Now why would you do that?" his mother asked, her voice growing fainter, his blurring…

And then Yugi realized just how much he hurt all over, and it wasn't from peas. Every muscle in his body ached: his head throbbed, his mouth was just plain horrible, his eyes felt sore. It was a struggle to open them — and his left was slightly swollen and not helping. He was having a hard time focusing — but Yugi could feel with his heart that intense, loud scarlet eyes that were locked on his own, too close and too far away.

He opened his eyes and found them where he knew they would be. There was the Pharaoh. Yami was silent, still; a stray fore lock swayed as he tilted his head to the side the only indication he wasn't a holographic statue leaning against the wall.

Rise and shine.

"You want to know what time it is?" Yami asked.

Yugi looked at him. The Spirit's arms were folded across his chest, his face that perpetual default of narrowed, blank eyes and poker lips.

"Okay," his voice croaked. He raised a hand to his throat.

"It's one o'clock in the afternoon." Yami didn't look like he was breathing, like he was even there at all. "Your history test ended a half an hour ago."

Yugi felt his forehead, the new band aids. He wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of Yami talking about tests and issues of non-world peril; his voice was always too dramatic for it. And a history test of all things for God's sake. Yes, the Pharaoh needed to say something about destiny. That would be more normal.

And he needed a tissue. His nose was full of dried blood and he needed to snort it all out. "Right," he rasped faintly. He probably had a cold now on top of it all. "I'll have to make it up when I go back after the lunch break."

"You're not going back."

Yugi looked somewhere unseeing. "Okay." He didn't feel like making decisions himself right now. It didn't matter. He hadn't seriously studied for anything for a year; he might as well have taken an Uzi at his GPA and ran it over with a freight train.

He had been told there were more important things. By Pegasus, by the Dark Bakura, by Malik, by Ishizu. By every possible extreme antithesis of the education system and standard life norms.

Even…by the Spirit himself.

Yugi knew his feelings weren't fair. Yami wanted to return to his afterlife where he had his own body, was rich, powerful, and had friends and family and _memories_ around him. Here he was just a Spirit, inhabiting the vessel of a teenager, unseen and largely ignored when Yugi was in school or hanging out. So Yami had every right to go home, to have his own body and life back, even if that life was death. Yugi just couldn't cope with the fact the Spirit wanted to go.

He looked down at the Puzzle that was back around his neck. This whole mess wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been selfish for a mind of his own. He was so _stupid_. He looked at its surface, feeling the Pharaoh's eyes on his face. So ungrateful for everything Yami had done for him…abstractly Yugi wondered what would happen if he moved to take the chain off again. But that was as far as that thought went, because now that it was back where it had been for two years he couldn't imagine ever doing something like yesterday again. Even if it meant he was showing it off, a beacon to evil doers everywhere who wanted to kill him and his friends for it. He felt that large, powerful presence outside his closed Door and pretended it was his own strength rather than someone else he could never match or be.

He was addicted to it, and very much reluctant to let it go.

(Yugi was frightened to wonder if he was trying to replace his grandfather already.)

--

Yami mentally shifted. His mouth was twitching, _he_ was twitching to do something other continue this standstill, when Yugi moved and curled up again underneath the covers. 'Don't talk to me,' Yugi's rising walls were saying. 'Don't talk to me don't talk to me, just go away…' and it felt…

_Horrible_.

"Your friends stayed all night," Yami said suddenly.

Yugi closed his eyes before he could see the magnitude of the guilt. "Okay."

The reply was agreeable, patient. Yami thought for a few moments.

Yugi would never have gone deliberately looking for trouble, he didn't have to; it was simply magnetically attracted to him. Being angry at Yugi didn't even cross his mind, and Yami gave an inward, slow, shallow exhale because he was starting to piece things together between coincidence and downward spiral.

Yugi wasn't crying all night, he was eating like he usually did; he wasn't cutting himself and he wasn't keeping a diary of how he would end his life (or, by default, Yami's), he was eighteen for gods' sake. He didn't initiate contact to his parents but that was nothing new; to all appearances he was acting like his normally, completely and abnormally well-adjusted self.

But that was the thing about true depressives and what kept the cogs in Yami's mind turning. They never acted the way you wanted them to, the way they were supposed to in the movies. Though Yugi's face was blank and calm, underneath it all…

Yami was a solitary person. No matter how many friends Yugi gained, or how much Yugi said those friends wished to see Yami more, the pharaoh usually preferred to remain hidden in Yugi's heart. Perhaps it was jealousy, bitterness; Yami was never so more aware that he could not physically express his fondness for Yugi, having no body for it to be otherwise, than when he was in their presence or on a dueling field before those who wished to hurt him in ways he couldn't diffuse with Shadow games.

It was rather pointless the true reason anyway: he only wanted to remain with Yugi, to care for him, in the fullest extent he was able. He would rather face Malik's sin, Anubis, Dartz, and the three gods all at once and alone, rather than use Yugi for his own devices without the boy's consent. He would do anything to change what he was doing to Yugi's life. Anything to change this moment he couldn't protect him from: life itself.

_Don't hide from me Yugi. I don't give a damn if you hide from Joey or Téa to save face, but not me…_

He readied himself. "You got into a fight—"

"GO AWAY!"

Yami jolted, pulling back so if he had been real his back would have hit the wall. Yugi had sat up, not looking at him. His eyes were clenched tight, his face tense, his hoarse voice ragged as his breathing, and yet he looked shockingly fragile — he didn't even seem sure of what to do with his hands. He looked as if one final tap would change him into a million unmatching pieces of glass; a glass puzzle that didn't match shattering on the floor.

Yami stilled his legs and shut his mouth, and Yugi returned to his pillow.

"You're going to anyway, aren't you?" his young, hurt voice said tonelessly.

It was quiet and still, and when Yugi turned around to check on his environment he jumped, because Yami was away from the wall and very, very close by his head.

Yami was very aware he was invading Yugi's personal space, and his gave a sharp mental message to Yugi that he _was_ doing it deliberately when the smaller body tried to inch away into the covers. He leaned closer in challenge, not revealing anything. He studied Yugi's eyes like he was reading the secrets off Malik's back. Yugi met them, not blinking much, eyes surprisingly open normally and steady despite the swelling. He was stubborn like that.

Yugi didn't know what to do when he noticed (still not looking away) that Yami's hands were raising, deciding with gentleness and intensity to…

Yugi panicked. He had to stop this. This wasn't… and god it was all his fault, because he was selfish and stupid and making it more complicated than it should by being weak. "Don't you dare try and lecture me," Yugi rasped, quietly, a part of him _afraid_. "You, of all people…"

Yami froze. They stared at each other.

Then the Spirit pushed off swiftly, away, and when the Puzzle's glow around Yugi's neck dulled he was gone.

--

Yugi sat down to an American movie once, and Yami remembered one line from the confusing subtitles that had stuck with him ever since. According to the narrator, there came a time when a man needed to fight, and a time when he needed to accept that his destiny was lost; that the ship had sailed, and only a fool would continue. 'Truth is…' the subtitles read, almost happily in yellow Roman, 'I've always been a fool.'

It described his current situation to a 'T' of perfection it could have been ordered out by the gods, or that maybe Yugi was right when he joked that _their_ lives were a horribly scripted B movie.

Regardless, the current situation…

/This isn't right!/

Yami was going to keep forcing this even if Yugi finally broke him into a million itty bitty pieces.

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the Turtle Game Shop. Hm, it was a little dirty; he'd have to fix that or risk frightening future customers with the reproduction of The Grudge leering at them from the corner.

/That's _my_ body and _you_ don't get to be in control of it when I say no!/

"Oh, and is this because you take_ such_ good care of it, right?" He muttered aloud calmly. Yugi's voice had cleared quickly, but there were lingering effects of the cold he'd caught laying in the damp alley of a bar all night.

/LET ME OUT!/ Yami turned over another card with Yugi's bandaged hand from the draw pile at the store front counter. But no, there was no place for an eight of spades. His eyes darted towards the door, but this was only one o'clock; it wouldn't even get modestly busy until two-thirty.

/_LET ME OUT!/ _

"Let me think." It was amusing to feel Yugi seethe when he sent the Jeopardy song through the link and then flatly: "No."

/I'LL SMASH THE PUZZLE! I'LL GIVE IT TO VIVIAN WONG! YAMI IF YOU DON'T LET ME OUT NOW I'M DONATING ALL YOUR LEATHER TO THE GOOD WILL AND WEARING JEANS AND WHITE WIFE-BEATER SHIRTS UNTIL I'M ARRESTD BY THE FASHION POLICE, YOUR_ HIGHNESS!/_

It was reflected how very much a good thing it was he hadn't physically locked Yugi in his real room by magic and smirked from a corporeal distance; he put the three of hearts with the two at the top. If he had, Yugi would have strained his voice by now and Yami didn't want that. Time was needed to heal Yugi's body and it was best when the one in control was stable enough not to break the incisions and bruises. /And this is supposed to convince me to let you out? If anything its making me frightened should I do so. You know how much I like my leather. Appearance is very important to me… hm, maybe it's best if I _don't_…/

Ouch. Yugi sent a lightning bolt of anger from his growling heart.

Yami rubbed his — Yugi's — temples, wincing. /Don't make me block you, Yugi./

/How long are you going to keep me in here?/

Flip. Draw. Move. Hmm… Yami considered his cards. /As long as it takes./

/And what is this 'it' specifically that you are waiting out?/

/Well it changes every few moments, you see, what with you constantly to irritating me while I play solitaire. Those things add to your jail time, if you will./

/You're sick./

/You're the one who was carried home half-dead from a bar fight. You're emotionally unstable./

/Un — un—! _I_ am not the one obsessed with fire. And chloroform, and death in general…/

Yami frowned, but it was because he reached the end and had to start over, not because he decided to let it slide or even processed the comment. Drat, he lost twenty points. He scanned again to make sure he didn't need a queen.

/Fine./ Yugi huffed. /See if I care!/ Then, less controlled, /I refuse to speak to you! I'm never speaking to you! I won't until you let me out!/

However, the furious tempest of Yugi's tantrum wavered nervously when Yami's full out laugh filled physical and spiritual planes. Really, Yami even dropped the card he picked up, grinning. And…it wasn't natural for socially-retarded people like the Pharaoh to laugh. It upset the natural order for arrogant anal Type A, stoic ex-pharaohs with enough Shadows to equate three tons of radon to take out the world…bad things. Even after he composed himself, Yami chuckled again darkly, smirking as he tapped a card against the counter, looking down at the healing cuts with resolve. /If you will remember, I was trapped in mind-numbing isolation with Shadows ripping at the very essence of my soul, pulling my memories apart, for three_ thousand_ years, _dear_ Yugi. _In absolute silence. _Bring it on./

--

"Yugi's going to have to ask Téa for Government notes and stuff," Joey was saying. "But dat Hanasaki kid offered the AP Calculus ones since he and Yuugi are like, the only ones in it or whatever." Well, not the only ones. But he'd rather chug rat poison than enter Kaiba's breathing space, even for his best friend's GPA. Slung over his shoulder rest Yugi's backpack, taken from the locker during sixth period after he'd hacked the combination. He shifted the heavy load with ease and dropped it on the table. "So, where _is_ the other Yugi?" Joey asked, nearly sounding casual. "I mean, Real Yugi. I mean…oh forget it."

"Detention."

"What?"

The Pharaoh pointed to his head.

"I don't — oooohh." Joey grinned, a little nervously. He wasn't used to talking to the dead guy that lived in his friend's head that much; if anything, his heart was beating quickly solely out of habit that talking to Yami equated to someone dying. _Poor guy._

"Dude, never on your bad side."

A pain struck inside no matter how many times he joked about it…

How could the Spirit even let him near Yugi? If he hadn't... if he'd just trusted Yugi's decision, if he'd just have calmed down...

Not that Yami was exactly innocent of crimes himself, despite his rallying speeches; Joey eyed him.

"It's nice to know I'm respected," the Pharaoh was saying, giving a small, uncertain smile as he looked down at the table. "Having Yugi's voice constantly asserting the monstrosities of my existence wears down on my ego after a while."

"He was actually yelling?" He took off the backpack and let it fall in one of the remaining kitchen chairs. He was actually _speaking_?

"He has an excellent set of lungs, or heart, if you will, since the yelling is all," he gestured to his head again, "mental." Joey decided to pretend he understood that and nodded. "This is all my fault."

Joey looked away. "Don't," he said. "It's…it's both of ours."

The Pharaoh moved to sink his head into his hands. "If I hadn't lost…"

"_If I hadn't called!_" Joey exploded, slamming his fist on the table. The Pharaoh's head shot up and stared at him, arms still raised to hold his head. "If I hadn't…" Joey's eyes squeezed shut. "I mean…shit..." He ran a hand through his hair and glared at the fridge. It was all coming out now. All that he'd held caged inside of him since that 'save the world part two' BS in America, all that anger, all that guilt that ate at his insides more than thinking back of hurting Yugi ever did…

"Solomon would have wanted to know," Yami said softly. "You don't…if I hadn't played that card…"

"You got him back," Joey snapped. "And then all of us. You won. You always do; I knew you'd get him back, so did Yugi. But what I did, Yami, that…that _wasn't_ my call. He wasn't my gramps. That was stupid, that was so, so stupid and I can't believe…"

"His friend knew, Arthur Hawkins; he would have called here and said the same thing later."

"But would he have keeled over and had a God forsaken heart attack?!" Joey shoved off from the table. "Christ," he said. "Just--! Damn it." He told himself he wouldn't cry. Not in front of Téa, _never_ Tristan, or let alone Serenity. He'd avoid Yugi and…and… "What was I thinking?" He muttered under the hand pulling down at his mouth. His eyes were hard at the wall. "What was I…_shit_."

"Joey," he heard the Pharaoh stand.

It was Yugi's body, but not, and that was so comforting to him because that meant it _was_ Yugi but _wasn't_, so he could look at him and not completely fall to pieces in guilt and shame. When Yugi but not _Yugi_ put his hand on his shoulder Joey didn't die like in his nightmares of late. This was like a preparation for the real Yugi when he came back. Baby steps. One card at a time.

"I fucked up." He mumbled out, "This is so much worse than the harbor."

A short, humorless laugh escaped Yugi-not-Yugi's lips. "This is so much worse than the match against Kaiba at the castle, the duel against Pegasus, the harbor, the air ship, the _fire_," He pulled his hand back and stared at the scars that didn't exist when he was in control, "and…Doma. Because there's nothing we can do. Joey, please believe me when I say you have nothing to be sorry about."

"I was angry," he said, staring at the fridge. "I was angry and I wasn't thinking." _At you for not trying. At Kaiba for not caring. At… _Oh gods, he just had to let it all out and not give an old man some time to process didn't he?! He'd just exploded on the phone that 'you're grandson is…'

Oh gods…oh gods he was so _sorry_…

"I did this, not you," Joey heard distantly; that rumble he so rarely picked up because the Puzzle prevented him from distinguishing differences unless the Pharaoh lowered them, "I…make it worse for him, every day I'm with him." Joey looked at him curiously. "He used to say I fixed him. But it's a lie; it's you and the others. His friends that stop everything from completely spinning out of control and support us. Without you he couldn't go on. And as a consequence, neither could I."

Joey nodded his head robotically. "Yeah," he said, "Yeah." He was done with this. He couldn't do this. He wasn't an emotion-dealing person, he was a hitting person. And he couldn't hit Yugi, he couldn't hit the Pharaoh, and no one could hit Solomon now, and those newspapers, the hurt, the guilt… He pulled back and Yugi's — but not_ Yugi's _— hand fell.

And it was too much. He couldn't do stuff like this when the Pharaoh was talking to him with a tone and demeanor that was all-forgiving. It hurt, because it was an attribute he associated with… He exhaled out shakily. "Anything I can do to help you?" He asked. "He can be an angry little guy." And it should be _him_ the anger was directed at, after all, Joey thought.

Yami tilted his head, eyes drifting off for a couple seconds before coming back. "I think he's sleeping now." His lips twitched. "Wore himself out when I put him in a maze."

A maze? Joey looked around quickly before locking on the Puzzle at Yami's lower chest. He gaped. "You what?"

The Pharaoh shrugged. "I said that if he could find the end he could get out."

"What wore him out?"

"It was a rotating maze."

Joey decided to leave, that Yami had more issues than the _Rolling Stones,_ and this 'conversation' aside, it still didn't compare with everything else he'd seen these past two years.

…And was it so totally _wrong_ that that last part didn't freak him out or decide that it wasn't just what Yugi needed? It sounded so stupid, but as he aimlessly wandered to Tristan's (his dad got fired again and he was _not_ going back there) Joey thought about how he was sort of stuck in a maze himself, but it wasn't one he could see. He wished (and it was sick and it wasn't fair) that he had one to run down too, a physical _something_ so that he could scream and pound at something tangible until he couldn't breathe anymore and passed out on a surface of his own making.

He grit his teeth, thinking of Solomon.

_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm..._

_I'm so sorry. _

--

Yugi had been Chosen three thousand years ago. Fact, because Ishizu said he, the Pharaoh, had already planned who would solve the Puzzle.

Logically a part of him, then, must have already known everything about Yugi.

Before Yugi had been aware of him Yami had lived—did still live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound Yugi made the Spirit heard, and every movement Yugi made, scrutinized. Yami had known no other way of life since he'd woken up, and he hadn't really bothered to try anything else.

_/Whoever you are little Yugi might have been better off without your interference, hmm?/_

Yami clutched his fists. _Shut up_, he demanded, though Pegasus was gone and harmless for _good_…

The feeling of jealousy towards the _memory_ of himself wasn't helping matters either. He highly doubted his heart tomb was inscribed with hieroglyphics of anything _useful_, like _other_ than how Yugi was supposed to help him save the world…and instead like how to approach him without getting yelled at or needing to physically and mentally wear Yugi out before getting yelled at, for instance. _That_ he could really use right about now.

He knew Yugi's favorite color was green, his favorite show on Saturdays after P.E. (_Hikaru no Go_, for humorous, disturbing coincidences when they watched it together), how Yugi would make and eat banana pancakes for all three meals if no one watched him otherwise. He knew how Yugi would sleep that night depending on how he felt, what certain smiles meant by the curve and the scrunch of his nose and his head tilt (but like everyone else, actually the Spirit was just as lost as anyone else figuring out Yugi's eyes), and his weakness during his rare funks was watching a set of old puzzle videos his father bought him for a forgotten birthday…those things…

Some people claimed that they knew someone by heart, and by that they meant they knew every line and crevice on another's body. And it was always said with starry eyes and flowers. Yami couldn't help but feel superior in the sense he was the only one who literally knew Yugi's hearts and lines.

Yes, fortunately Yami already knew Yugi by heart, and everything before and after that. Unfortunately, it was figuring out how to actually_use_ all that knowledge that was proving a pain in the ass. As was gathering up the courage to be within five feet of him, which didn't make sense considering they shared the same body.

The Spirit realized he was stalling when he was in the corridor contemplating the relevance between being twenty feet away from Yugi in his head and paralleling it to the distance in their relationship in general. Sucking in a determined (nervous, _undignified_) breath, Yami pushed open the thankfully slightly open Door. As he stood in the room, a nameless soul merely existing amongst a heart's attachments to the living world, he gazed on Yugi as he thought long and hard, about what was right and what was just foolish. Yami's sensibility was all that had kept him alive in centuries of darkness. If he had allowed his heart and emotions to rule himself he would have never made it out, he'd have been destroyed by the greedy Shadows instantly. Only a deep stubbornness allowed him to keep the most basic fragments of his sanity and regain it when he reached the real world. That, and the fact that Yugi had solved the Puzzle.

Solved the Puzzle. A human boy with a very naïve heart and loyal mind. A feat he'd always perceived as impossible…and a feat that almost made him rethink his lessons he'd spent three thousand years learning. So, who was the teacher at all?

And when your 'student' is learning too much too fast and you're running out of excuses, what then?

He walked through the room. It was an obstacle course of funny props and metaphors—models of cities, a robot, a suit of armor, masks, marionettes, a giant-stuffed spider in a web, a pair of angel wings.

Bundled up in a blanket was Yugi, breathing silently and deeply without a care in the world, near an empty patch of floor. He knew from previous experience a million Battle Ox could stampede through the room and Yugi could sleep right through it without a grunt. Yami allowed an indulgent smile no one else would ever see as he knelt beside him closer than he would if Yugi were awake. He couldn't help himself from brushing the stubborn bang from Yugi's forehead. Lowered eyes shifted to the Puzzle around his neck. A puzzle for Yugi and Yugi alone.

_/Bakura sneered at Otogi. "A spirit like yours will be burnt and gone once you held it./_

"Spirit," Yugi murmured. Then he frowned and turned into the carpet, "Jerk."

He sighed heavily, figurative storm cloud of resignation forming over his head.

Yami knew he had it lucky with his host; countless other minds would have caved to the darkness or the other promises their enemies connived. But on top of the fact that if Yami personally would have sunk it without a second thought if he started blacking out on the inheritance of ancient object, there was a whole bunch of nasty other things Yugi let him get away with, if for no other reason than that Yugi was not forgiving or patient, but 'odd' in a way that had Yami thanking the gods on a regular basis of relief.

And he just lost his grandfather, the man who raised him (wonderfully) and was the only normal, grounding element no matter how unstable everything else became. He was always there, sweeping the floor, hitting his head to do his homework, and grinning and letting him go out and get six flavors of ice cream at midnight because 'the Spirit' never had it before…

His smile froze on his face as Yugi swallowed, breathed heavily, and then sat up. He glared, and Yami spinelessly, immediately, felt wary and guilty.

"Oh," Yugi said tiredly. "You're here."

He inclined his head. "Yes."

Yugi hunched over, elbows resting on his lap as he buried his face in his hands, pulling his fingers through his dark hair. "I'm fine."

"I don't like liars."

"Well I don't like your tendency to kill people, so there."

He honestly didn't know why Téa thought Yugi was an angel. Yami tried a different, authoritative approach. "I order you to be civil."

Yugi brought up his hands, "Oooh, look Pharaoh, I'm shaking!"

Yami grabbed below them tightly. "Stop it, _please_."

Yugi looked away but didn't fight his grip.

Yami didn't breathe at the realization or exaggeration of his realization, in more ways than one. He just stared at Yuugi's small, slim wrists caught in _his_ hands. The hands that waved Shadows and trapped psychics in jars and split minds apart and played evil cards. Yugi's tense but comically ineffectual fists… They had never attempted contact in their minds but now it was… He dropped them promptly and swallowed. "Don't block me out anymore," Yami whispered. "Yugi."

_I don't care what you do, I honestly don't; go take over the world, or whatever normal teenagers do now when they're angry, I don't care what you do to get this out just let me sense your heart still beating close to mine…_

That idiot Kaiba once stood on the edge of a castle wall, but even the length of that colossal height could not outsize the dangerous gap that was currently between him and Yugi. This was built not of man-made stone and dusting rock, but mistrust and bitterness and something Yami couldn't _bear_ to think because if he did he'd go insane again and lose everything, like before.

Doma was like that, and before then like against Pegasus on an extended level, but _Doma._And this, he couldn't stare Death at anyone on the opposite side of a field; there was only himself. Or even worse, admit Yugi was his opponent, and that was _—_! He swallowed. "Who hit you?"

"Why don't you just look inside my mind?" Yugi snapped defensively. "You're good at that."

Why couldn't he get a break? He was certain there was something about guardian angels getting a break. The way this conversation was going, he'd rather have a go alone against Ra's Instant Death Attack.

"I don't want to talk anymore." Yugi was saying. "I'm leaving."

--

Yugi realized whether it was speaking to the Pharaoh, or they were back to back deciding their next move; Yugi was always sat one-and-a-half feet away. Close, closer than the Spirit would let anyone else get, but one-and-half-a-feetaway. Subtle, yet daring, yet also distance all the same made even more pathetic because one of them was dead and that was another distance all together. He was constantly aware of this; it was how it always was.

Pattern. This was a pattern. Yugi was trapped in a hopeless, addictive pattern with the Pharaoh.

His delusion that he could break away at anytime, pattern number one.

He_ wasn't_ addicted, number two.

That Yugi was aware it would end and Yugi was _fine_ with that: a rather disastrous, rotating variable sliding up and down and around his psyche and circular reasoning.

In their pattern, like clockwork, one of them would always end the conversation and the other would respect it. So like clockwork after saying _this was over_ Yugi's hands and feet found themselves climbing up so he could stand, each foot having its own spot.

But Yami somehow got in front of him, barricaded the doorway to the real world with his body and using his outstretched arms on the frames as additional blocks so even Yugi's smaller, darting size wasn't an advantage.

He was breaking pattern, but Yugi should have known better anyway to be so hopeful. Much of his pattern was the unpredictability and_ ambiguity_ of the Game King when he was with others outside of Yugi: if someone moved forward, the Pharaoh wasn't the type to step back. He'd step forward just because you challenged him. And if they didn't move he'd flatten them and that's what you got for being stupid. And for the first time Yugi was no different: he'd challenged Yami, however subtle it was, and Yami was threatening back. A perfect electrical circuit. Sweetly, freshly painful in ways it should be, comforting in ways it shouldn't considering Yugi's obsession with being like him.

Téa had admitted that she had been the first to notice the differences between himself and the Spirit when one was in control. They looked so much alike, she'd explained, there were only subtle differences to the body, and the Puzzle's magic probably did something to the observer's mind to desensitize the other differences. She said the only difference that made it possible for her to see, was the shape of the eyes.

But there was nothing physically similar between them now. Yugi didn't see how the Spirit could ever have been mistaken for him, _especially_ with those eyes, and it wasn't shape, it was _color_. Yami's eyes changed with his mood and right then they were _nothing_ like the nothing-special weirdness of Yugi's; they were crackling, dangerous eyes of Mars, molten Shadows and cackling fire that made the rest of his face…

It was the face that had come out after he shoved Yugi away and played Oreikalkos.

Yugi sucked in a breath.

The thing is, the Spirit always asked for him to trust him, and even though Yugi always did, that didn't stop a little voice from telling him there _might_ be a point zero zero zero zero one possibility that it was a Bad Idea. Yugi never listened to that voice, because it was easier to trust Yami, and he was terrified to imagine a world where he didn't.

Yami, always seeming so perfect without even trying. Yugi was so, so unspeakably terrified of a world where that wasn't true, for all his faults.

_/Yugi…Stop caring…Stop… affect you—/_

Who said that? Yugi could have sworn it was the Spirit, but he was losing himself lately, and becoming more like the pharaoh than he had anticipated. Time had worn him down, made him wise and tired. His eyes no longer were wide and bright, but jaded and silently warm, that you had to look deep inside of them to see happy. Yugi had seen enough of these battles, these tragic romances and anguish lifestyles. The Pharaoh would leave one day to gain his memories, but Yugi would never _ever_ go back to being a normal school boy.

Oh well. Ironically, normal life was proving to have way more drama than his currently mystical archeology-infused one.

_/Stop Yugi! Stop letting him…/_

And then Yugi remembered. He tensed and his right hand covered the Puzzle, staring at Yami with a glare but inside he was about to go under in the hopelessness of his situation.

_/Stop caring about the other Yugi! Stop letting him affect you!/_

It was ironic, pathetic, and so many other levels of things that should never be because one day it would end. _But…_

_I can't stop, Joey._

_And the scariest part is I don't want to, either._

He noticed Yami's eyes fixed on him, and he felt, as always, as if all his weaknesses were written on his face. The Pharaoh was rarely tender and loving and soft towards anything like he was…with him, and suddenly Yugi felt it so hot in his gut: _guilt_. Yugioh used to be prideful and independent and now he loses his mind ten minutes after Yugi's soul was gone.

Yugi didn't mean to do it; he honestly didn't believe anyone could like him the way he was. As he was. He wasn't really trying to push him away, even though the look in Yami's eyes was partly frightening him.

Yugi _forced_ himself to not look away. "Why do you do it?" Yugi yelled instead, stepping backwards and narrowing his eyes. "Why did you fight then for anything in this if it's so absolutely horrible that you're there with me —"

"_Because I have to be with you._" They were glaring, each bristling with their own anger and frustration and helplessness. He half expected Yugi to hit him, or run away wide-eyed.

But he only glared at him, challenging him and pushing him. "Sure. Right. That's normal. Go date Téa or something!"

And he decided to push back again. "When you were gone it was all wrong, I was on a train that led nowhere and going too fast because I wasn't even sure if you _were_ that way at all. I'd have given up everything, even _your own goddamned body _if it meant I could see you again."

For a while it had worried him, what this strange interest in Yugi was becoming the longer he was in the boy's presence. The Spirit knew he was starting to cross that line; that he could never claim Yugi as a momentary acquaintance again, because what he wanted from Yugi was not something normal—because Yugi wasn't an angel and Yami hadn't been alone in hell. It was a process, a state of horrific mind they both had to climb out from out on their own, and just happened to brush hands past each other on the way in their weakest moments. And right now he could sense Yugi's thoughts like high definition radio waves and just who was possessing who anyway? Technically _he_ stole Yugi's body to live but Ra damn it all —"You _are_ my most important thing. "

"Why me! Why can't you just —"

_"Because_! Just accept the facts and let them be that — why is that so God damned hard for you to understand, Yugi?"

"Because you _don't_ have to be with me, I am _not_ your 'most important thing!'" Yugi started to laugh, "Gods, but you're such a hypocrite I—! Open your eyes: _Spirit_, you're leaving! You don't need me or care as much as you say because when it's all said and done you will have to go!" At some point one of them had literally shoved; it didn't matter now because they were physically struggling against each other furiously like two lost children over a toy, trying to hurt the other as much as possible when someone fell onto the cluttered floor. "You're going to leave, you're going to die and join that WONDERFUL afterlife because that's my job isn't it? That's what the main character of this _stupid_ destiny thing does no matter how it affects…after — why are you making it so _hard_?"

The Spirit gained an advantage and flipped on top, hovered over him, voice angrily beginning to snarl: "Because you make it too easy! Damn it Yugi adopt a flaw, just ONE that could drive me away and it would be all I need to keep this stupid 'destiny thing' up! But it's impossible, because you _are_ stubborn, thick-headed, and nauseatingly…just… things! And if they were in other people they would drive me insane but for some _unspeakable_ reason it makes me have to be with you more. Not to make them go away — I never want them go away, I _don't want _to go away—"

"It'll be over soon so we should just give up, stop fooling oursel--"

Yami pinned his wrists and was so mad he couldn't _speak_ and--

/UNTIL MY HEART BREAKS THIS GAME IS NOT OVER./

Yugi clutched his hands over his ears at the mental whiplash, Yami's booming voice from a memory rattling around inside his head. "And _I_ swore," he snarled back. "That one day I would be strong and not lose to you—"

"For you?" Yami laughed coldly. "Or for _Téa_?"

"— So when you leave," Yugi snarled, "I can stand on my _ow—_!"

"I DON'T WANT YOU TO STAND ON YOUR OWN!"

Yugi froze.

Yami fumed. He was quiet. Thank RA. "Yes," Yami panted. "I want to know who I am. Yes, the consequences of that will most likely result in my having to permanently be separated form you. But you are not an innocent party, Yugi, oh no. _You_ _push me_ away, you force me out farther and farther from your mind and I hate it.

"I want you to feel the same things I am. You kill _me _and push _me_ away, fine. Then I'll _skip_ straight into that afterlife just as fast and hope it hurts just as painfully."

"I _hate_ you," Yuugi whispered, and then his voice shook, the heart in his eyes froze in horror. "I'm sorry, I didn't..." His voice was that fragile and sounded so much like a broken chord that Yami wanted nothing more than to turn around and punch the wall. He hated that sound; it didn't befit Yugi, not him who should be eternally optimistic and aggravatingly young and normal and odd.

And he realized Yugi was crying and he didn't know what to do. "Yugi…"

"It's just this isn't fair," Yugi sobbed. "This isn't fair and some of me left _with him_ but I wouldn't dream of wishing it on anyone else because it's so _horrible_."

"Oh Yugi…"

"I want him to come back! It isn—isn't fair! I fought for him so _hard_ and he's gone now because of something so _ordinary_!" Yugi's voice cracked, and even if he wasn't really a child to Kaiba or Ishizu or anyone who usually depended upon him for the world or a game, Yami still…

Yugi was too close to being just a boy. It was just that last stage, where you know they're really young men, but in your mind you could still see them at thirteen or fourteen. A dangerous line — plenty like Ishizu or Shaadi would be less than understanding if they found out anything that was going on right now...

But Yami has never liked them or their treatment with Yugi's destiny. Yugi was just a boy, his friend and _his_, and he needed to be held very badly.

In a strange twist of natural chemistry, Yami took him in his arms in way he hadn't been able to when he thought Yugi died against Pegasus, and the two of them, lying still and exposed on the edge of a crumbling mentorship, remained tired, marveling numbly at the sensation. He could tell that it was despair because only a desperate young boy will wrap his arms with someone he was just arguing against with such haste, such unbidden and hungry vulnerability as if he has nothing else to look forward to. It's odd and unsettling because a normal teenager should have a lot to look forward to: a realm of possibilities awaits him. It should be only the Pharaoh's future that was thwarted; he's the only one who should be unable to do anything. It's what the Spirit deserved, what all dead deserved, and he should tell Yugi off for ruining his future by wasting it on him; that he should forget what Ishizu said and try to pass the Puzzle to someone else.

But neither of them said anything. There were no ramifications, and there were no regrets, but there weren't any promises or sentiments either, instead only a solemn acceptance and the alarming silence that can only exist in one's heart and mind. They lay there, quietly, as though the words would shatter their one and only moment of utter understanding in a while; run a crack down the crystal fault lines of their spider-thin, uncertain fraternity, and so, they stayed silent until Yugi shifted against his shoulder, his voice steady as if he were letting something known turning in his head for a while:

"I have a confession. I want to be stronger for me, yes. But it's also mostly," Yugi paused, and then he relaxed as he said, "for you. I want to be strong enough to fight by your side."

Yami smiled and tried to pretend he wasn't by gazing pointedly in another direction, his chin tucked over Yugi's head. Subtly, he closed the link as Yugi drifted off, oblivious, and even if this was just Yugi's soul in his arms and not his flesh, it was more than enough.

--

Jeez that rat had done a number on him.

Yuugi ran a hand over his lower chin, wincing as his faint nails apparently found a delicate cut and opened.

_And in entertainment news, yes, still no stubble here, Domino!_ Smiling to himself, Yugi turned around and hopped back on the bathroom sink counter, twisting around to criticize the whole of his face. Yami had taken care of most of it the ungodly hour he'd been brought home, even did his Spirit…magic...thing…where his facial tissue was repaired so he didn't need plastic surgery (joke…Yami didn't find it funny either). It was girlish, but he figured with the light, gray tinges of fading bruises he could get away with applying some of his mother's left behind cover up if he wanted to present himself today. He was going to... Yugi frowned. 'Corner' Joey seemed too aggressive, but one way or another he _was_ going to see him today. Yugi had to. He missed him, and he needed to set things out in the open once and for all.

Despite Téa's fretting about a concussion, Yugi rejected going to see a doctor. Getting treated for third degrees burns was probably bad enough, but going to the hospital twice would be too risky. For all Yugi knew about the medical profession, a simple blood test might be able to prove that otherworldly forces has left unseen marks on his skin. The nurse would tell his parents, his parents would absolutely freak out and accidentally tell the media and before you knew it Yugi would be naked on a cold metal table while government scientists with very sharp knives and no concept of personal space experimented on his helpless form. And then the Pharaoh would probably kill people.

This train of thought explains a lot about Yugi in general and his decision-making processes in particular.

It wasn't like he would be alone for much longer anyway. Yami had a habit of seeking him out if he shut the link with him for more than five minutes unmonitored. Like when he ran Yami's mazes. Alone time when he did that definitely didn't extend past five minutes, and was usually followed by a lecture. He used to think Yami was so obsessive was because he honestly didn't think Yugi's head would still be connected to his neck, the boy was so weak.

Now…thinking of their ranting and venting match the other day, their first--Yugi blinked--ever, ...he didn't know why.

A mental knock caused Yugi to flinch and fall off the sink counter.

"Yugi?" Yami appeared, fidgeting uncharacteristically and staring at his hands before looking up. "I just wanted to — _Yugi_!"

"Yesff," Yugi responded, wincing from the cold hard-floor. Collecting his breath, the smaller ego lay against the carpet and turned to let his mouth greet the air. "You scared the bejeezes out of me."

"Yugi," he breathed, and knelt next to him, taking him by the shoulders and Yugi leaned back against the sink's cabinets, blinking dazedly upwards as the tiny lights faded. "I did not mean to frighten you."

"Hm. I didn't mean to lose the Puzzle to Malik in the warehouse." Yugi confessed, closed his eyes. Oh cripes, he didn't mean to say that out loud. Great. How random could he get? "Er…that was the Benadryl."

"Yugi." He reached for him again.

"Just now you didn't ask if I was all right." Yami froze; Yugi waved at the turmoil that filled his eyes at the sentence. "No, no, not that way. I mean, that was a good thing. Like, you know when someone gets hit by a bus for some reason all witnesses can say is 'all you all right?' I mean, come on," Yugi babbled, "The person got hit by a bus," he stared at Yami, who stared at him like he was a bomb. Which was ironic because Yami liked bombs. Anyway. "Er, conclusion: 'are you all right' is the wrong thing to say someone who's hurt, if anything it's a little stupid and um, that's my philosophy anyway. So. Um. Thanks for not getting me annoyed."

Silence. Yugi was thinking he should definitely stick to the directions when measuring doses of Benadryl.

"…You honestly don't expect me to say 'you're welcome' to that do you?" Yami cocked an eyebrow, a small smile on his face while he sent the Puzzle's numbing magic while Yugi applied alcohol to the cuts.

Yugi sighed. "I don't know. I don't know." He looked at his reflection, frowning and running a finger over part of his bruise and deciding he would definitely need cover up if he didn't want some nosy person in public calling child's services. "I think I'm just nervous."

"About?"

Yugi looked up and saw Yami next to him in the mirror, meeting his eyes.

"I'm going to talk to Joey today," he said simply, but his face tightened at the end, showing how desperate he really was.

"Yugi?"

"Stop."

Yami's jaw clicked shut, sensing Yugi struggling to say something.

"I...it's about the other day."

Yami's hand fluttered over the other's shoulder, about to offer support.

"I need you to know something," Yugi began. He fiddled with the cover up cap, his face meditative and hesitant. Then,

"I don't need a father. I don't need a friend, a brother, or a new grandfather." His eyes hardened. "And I don't want a guardian babysitter."

Yami tensed, eyes widening, an invisible monster called fear slithering up his cold body.

"But I do…need and want…you," his hand tentatively put the bottle away; Yami was uncharacteristically terrified to move. "Spirit…Yami."

"Then I will be here," he said. The memory of '_you're going to leave me!_' rang inside his head, biting and painful, but he shoved it down. "I… I won't leave you because…I will be here as long as you want me, Aibou."

"Don't you think that after all our time together I've got you memorized? I know when you lie, Pharaoh." Yuugi paused. "Aibou?" He asked.

Yami blinked. He'd said…oh. Yuugi tried not to smile as Yami looked off, embarrassed and arrogantly trying not to show it. "It…that's a word I heard when we…when you were out…and…once…" He almost jumped when he felt a hand on his upper arm. He looked down, nervous.

"It's okay." Yuugi was smiling with an odd expression on his face that made Yami feel light. "I like it."

"You…you do?"

"It's comforting."

"Could…" he couldn't look away. "Yugi, if I were to call you that…then there would be no roles, no guardian or mentor. We'd just be equals, partners."

"And what about your memories, Yami?"

He dodged the question. "I keep dreaming that you'll always be with me…Yugi; that neither of us will ever go."

"It's a nice dream, but it's only that."

He tried to insist the conversation further, "I couldn't…Doma, I…"

"I'm okay with that." Yugi said steadily. He zipped up his jacket; he had to get going or he'd be late meeting Joey. Yami didn't push, and couldn't bring himself to, really; he was too terrified to ask and hope for what (Aibou? Together? Leaving?) Yugi was approving.

--

Joey was at Burger World, and it was lunchtime. The place was jammed with kids from school, plus a few businessmen swooping in for a dash. A few workman sauntering in from their roadwork break.

It was always loud in Burger World. People ordering and people taking orders, paper crumbling, ice sloshing, plastic trays clattering, laughter, groans, yells, shouts. And it was hot. It was a weird fact of life that the colder the weather was outside, the hotter Burger World would be inside. People felt the need to crank the thermostat despite the fact that when it's cold outside people are going to be wearing coats, so the last thing they need is for it to be ninety degrees inside.

And they are going to somehow say to their best friend that they are sorry for indirectly killing their best friend's practically last relative while he was in a piece of stone tablet so his other self could do the saving the world thing. And so they were sweating off _pounds_ as it was while waiting for the best friend to show up.

Joey drummed his fingers on the table nervously, staring at the red play paint announcement on the window for half price burgers on Tuesdays, melting a little from the heat inside.

And then there's another thing that's been bothering for a while, and made clear by the events Yugi's been finding himself in since Solomon's death. The Pharaoh has been on the verge of jumping off a cliff to his natural end since Battle City, but that doesn't — _shouldn't _— mean that Yugi had to follow him, breaking, tearing himself apart with his odd sense of loyalty and love that might have suicidal consequences for him. Joey was first aware of it at the harbor, sensed it against Malik, and cemented with Doma: in the next few days or even weeks, Yugi might die for the man in his head, and he might do it without a backwards glance to them.

He would die for anyone; Joey would too, for the right person, he didn't understand his anxiety but then, he was already drowning in guilt…

If it weren't for the other (Real) Yugi's faith, he might have killed both parts of his best friend — _all _of his friends.

It's not something easy to say. You can't just spit out: 'Dude, I'm sorry I killed your gramps. Stay alive for me though, okay?' So Joey felt he had a good reason to be jumping all the wide smiles he got from the host and waitress ordering a drink. He wished he could have a beer, but this was a family restaurant, so instead of poisoning his kidneys he was going to have to settle with eroding his liver with soda.

He hadn't realized Yugi had walked in until he was crossing to the other side of the booth and sliding in, and his eyes widened and sat up straight immediately.

"Hey Joey," Yugi said slowly, complete with his patent socially awkward smile.

"Yo," Joey grinned fakely back. "What's up?" Oh God. "I mean--!"

"Yeah."

Joey swallowed. "…Huh."

"You?"

"Same."

The perky waitress even Téa would have been annoyed at sweetly asked for Yugi's drink with her white teeth. Yugi, who was normally a wall flower anyway faded even more speaking to her, and then she was thankfully gone in a swirl of her short skirt and ugly uniform top.

Joey avoided Yugi's eyes for as long as he could. He shifted in the window seat again. He wanted to tell Yugi everything...from the beginning to end...let everything about Doma and Yugi and how scared he was of losing him _out_--

But Joey couldn't even gather his thoughts. He couldn't make sense of what happened to him, of why it happened... or just _why_. "I'm so stupid," he muttered randomly. Great. No wonder he couldn't get with Mai.

"Well I'm not much better off," Yugi said kindly.

"This is why you and Tristan are always fighting for the best friend slot," Joey said before he could stop himself. "He shoves my head in the toilet when I'm being an idiot but you, you just agree and say you're there with me." He couldn't believe he said that. "I mean--Yugi, that's completely pointless and what I really want to say is that—"

"Joey."

Joey wasn't an intimate person. Not that he wasn't emotional, as he realized with the Pharaoh; he really was passionate, and all that girly stuff he'd rather not let Téa or God forbid Tristan know about. The problem was _dealing_ with all he felt; and in that he was always a failure. Hello, he beat up Yugi for years never wanting to admit he was jealous that Yugi just never cared or took it personally.

So when Yugi reached over and nudged his hand, on top of not speaking or connecting to Yugi for at least two weeks now, Joey nearly had a heart attack as his brain blanked out. He looked at him, Yugi, one of his best friends, and was absolutely terrified.

_I shouldn't have called your grandfather and been so selfish with my hysteria that you were dead and just **hung up** I gave him a fucking heart attack and there was no one there to find him and **no one knew** until we got back. Yugi I'm sorry, I'm so so **sorry**. Just say it. _"Please man, just give a minute to apol—"

"Joey it's okay."

Joey stared at him.

He hadn't been able to sleep since coming home and finding out about Solomon. He'd spent the time living in a nightmare of what ifs and truths that ate him up in the cyclonic wake that had been Doma and Battle City and Mai and so many other things anyway.

But Yugi.

Yugi not angry at him. Yugi forgiving him. Yugi's eyes saying the forgiveness was only given because Joey wanted it, but Yugi never blamed him anyway, but Joey couldn't look at that yet. Just that Solomon was dead and it was his fault--

_Yugi was forgiving him_.

But what if…?

Yugi — Joey felt like he was waiting for another shoe to drop — Yugi who forgave Kaiba for trying to kill him multiple times.

What if?

It's the 'what if' that made him start wishing he could fucking jump out of the booth and go get drunk and pick on his father and get swung at instead of being forgiven. Instead of this sudden unexpected fact that Yugi was — somehow — touching him, and Joey hoped for any proof this wasn't a nightmarish trick.

Forgiveness was…

It was too large a concept for his brain to handle. Just the 'what if' was giving him enough trouble, thank you, kindly. He had enough trouble dealing with his sister's acceptance; and he was still frightened for what Mai made him feel. Yugi was...he was something more than just a best friend, not that it was more than what he felt for Tristan or anything; but he knew he wasn't supposed to feel this _vulnerable_. Like in two seconds Yugi was going to be the one to take off running this time, and Joey would know without even trying he'd never catch up to him, if Yugi decided it was over.

But looking back, Joey realized it had always been this way. Running after others, running after life and always going the wrong way against the salmon, or whatever the fuck metaphor Téa used.

There's just... there's his father, his father looking ahead. Never looking behind, never looking at him.

_Not now, brat…_

His mother taking his sister away. Mai dropping off the planet, again and again. The Pharaoh being so patient but always ahead out of his reach, and Kaiba. Kaiba for the win. Kaiba _always_ for the motherfucking win and it might have become too much after all.

But then there's Yugi.  
_  
In his mind, out of the thousands of faces moving for their own future, Yugi slows. Yugi smiles and waits and behind him Solomon is there too, eyes just as forgiving and smiling and everything Joey ever wanted in a parent, a family._

Joey looked across the table and found…

This time didn't have to be his race, anymore.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

And suddenly when his hand tightened around Yugi's everything _just slid off,_ and Solomon's ghost was gone.

--

"Honestly Yug', you leave me no choice but to leer at her when she walks by us to leave."

Yugi sent him an amused look. "You'd do that anyway."

Joey rolled his eyes in a 'well, duh' sort of way before looking pointedly at the girl they've been dissecting as Yugi's next candidate to relief him of his virginity, "I can't deny that. I assume that if she's got your blinders off Téa she must be a significant distraction."

Yugi looked at him flatly, and handed the ketchup bottle to Joey; their fingers brushed, but neither acknowledged the slight, gratifying touch of friends who are comfortable with each other.

"She wants you…" Joey instead teasingly sang as he dipped fries in the red paste. He continued his teasing as he spoke around his food. "Yuug', you could cut the sexual tension in here wid a knife. One of 'ese limp little white plastic knives."

"Does Mai know you talk like this?" Yugi sighed pessimistically, taking another look at the pretty brunette with a wondering expression. "You know, you'd think that with all I have to deal with, I'd be braver about the little stuff."

It sounded so easy, right? 'Hi, Kairi, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the ice cream shop next door and talk.' One sentence. Not the hardest thing in the world. The hardest thing should be saving the _world_; mourning his grandfather; working things out with the three thousand year old Spirit in his head. It couldn't possibly be ten seconds of oral communication. With a girl.

Yeah. Right.

In either Yugi's world or the world of males, those three words changed everything. And if he couldn't say it to Téa, who would stay on a blimp and risk getting possessed to cheer him (well, Yami) on, and had stuck by him since he was a four-foot-eight punching bag, how could he say it to a person who probably didn't even know what his name _was_?

"Ya just need to brush up on the openin' line," Joey broke in, knowing Yugi's thoughts easily. He thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers, grinning sly. "How about this: from my angle I can see her pack, and look, it has her name on it!" Yugi stared at him blankly and Joey cleared his throat and said as heroically as one could in a whisper across the table: "Now we've cleared you from looking like a stalker, we can move on. You take her hand, go down on one knee, and say: Lovely Kairi, Babe, your name means 'new land.' I, quite literally, am 'king of games.' My king-like authority can tend your land, no matter how new, if ya know what I mean." He wiggled his eyebrows.

They stared at each other for a full second and then it was too much: the mental image of _Yugi_ (or, Yugi gasped, the _Pharaoh_) saying something like that was just too much—they exploded into laughter and and one one-sided blush at the table. And as fantastically unbelievable and Lifetime it could possibly be, it was _back_—that rhythm and _bond_ Yugi was willing to die for at the dock and had Joey diving off a ship was _back_ and it was _easy_ and there and neither of them could stop laughing for how simple and stupid they were.

Simple and stupid, in a way only friendship between stupid, simple boys could be.

--

A/N: Yugi's so amazing and humble I think he would be completely oblivious that everyone in Domino DOES indeed know his name. And wants to jump him. He's so cute, in dub, sub, and manga.

--

QUOTES:

_"My king-like authority can tend your land, no matter how new, if ya know what I mean." He wiggled his eyebrows._

K.A. Applegate; _Everworld_.

_He missed his bucket. He might not fit into it so well in a few days. His mother brought bowls of oatmeal with bananas and honey.__ Yuck, thought Yugi. Too hot for oats. If he had been able to stay in the bucket he might have eaten them. He slid out through the back of the chair_

_He ran across the blue-and-white kitchen floor to the refrigerator with taped pictures. He pulled on the door with both hands. He climbed inside, using the vegetables bins as stairs, and reached up. The bag of frozen peas hit him on the head as he feel backward onto the floor. It didn't hurt much but he cried anyway._

Francesca Lia Block; _Witzibat_


End file.
